Collaborator
by Panache
Summary: Chloe's willing to do anything to protect her friends, even if its from herself. :: Post-Freak. Scared by the implications of what her meteor infection might mean, Chloe strikes a deal with the devil. Chlex eventually.
1. Chapter 1

**Collaborator**

Author: Cy Panache  
Category: Dark/Romance  
Spoilers: This starts from the end of the Season 6 episode "Freak", from that point on I get to play as I wish.  
Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because other people have all the best toys.  
Summary: Chloe's willing to do anything to protect Clark, even if its from herself.

A/N: This fic has been posted on the N-S board for awhile, but I'm finally getting around to posting it here in an effort to keep everything I write in one place. People over there seem to like it, but I have no idea how a broader audience will react to this concept. Still I wanted to see if I could do something with these two in the middle of Season 6. All comments would be greatly appreciated.

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**Chapter 1**

_All I know is that every single Meteor freak I've ever run into has ended up either dead or in Belle Reve. I'm a walking time bomb._  
-- Chloe Sullivan "Freak"

----

"Mr. Luthor will see you now." The receptionist had an incongruously warm and pleasant voice that almost made the words sound like an invitation, a promise of good things just behind the glass doors and down the hall.

Chloe thought it was insanely unfair, putting someone at ease like that only to send them into jaws of a shark. Lex probably loved it, had probably selected the woman based purely on her voice. It wouldn't surprise her. He was like that, attentive to every detail, always aware of exactly what kind of impression he was creating. Obsessive compulsive bastard.

"Ms. Sullivan?"

The question jerked her out of her musings, and Chloe suddenly realized she was still sitting, lock-jawed, hands clenched around the strap of her bag. Forcing herself to exhale a long breath, she stood and tried to look more composed than she felt.

If she'd been here to spy, to investigate or report, if she'd been running on the righteous indignation of protecting her friends, she wouldn't have hesitated. For other people she could be an amazon, or a valkyrie. But she was here for herself, and she'd never been all that brave on her own behalf.

The receptionist pushed open the glass doors and led her down the hallway, the click of her stilettos muffled by the plush carpet. If Chloe hadn't been so distracted, she might have been intimidated by the immaculate, statuesque elegance of the woman beside her, but as it was her mind was already thirty feet away, down that hall and behind those doors. Already on what what she'd come here to do.

What the hell did she really think she was doing?

If anyone knew what she was doing, Lois, Jimmy, Lana, Clark . . . God, no don't think about Clark. If Clark knew he'd stop her. If Clark knew he'd look at her like he didn't know her anymore.

Maybe he didn't.

Ever since she'd found out she was meteor infected, she barely felt like she knew herself.

Her. Chloe Sullivan. Curator of the Wall of Weird, a 'meteor freak'.

A meteor freak.

She'd told herself over and over again it shouldn't make a difference, didn't change her. That 'meteor freak' wasn't a death sentence, wasn't a curse. That she was still the same person, still the same Chloe.

But it didn't feel that way.

She felt strange, disconnected, laid awake at night and wondered whether she'd recognize herself in morning.

_If anything can turn a law abiding citizen into a card carrying serial killer it's kryptonite._

She'd said that once without thinking, almost half a joke, but now it felt like a prophecy she couldn't escape, like she was just waiting to go off. And yes, Clark had promised to act as her 'bomb squad', in that voice that said everything would be all right, that he'd keep her safe and protected the way he always had before. And yes, she'd smiled like it made everything better, okay. But it didn't, nothing could.

Because everything was different now, because stopping her wasn't the same thing as saving her. Might break him if he had to do it.

The fear of that had become her nightmare, a vivid technicolor dream that cut her sleep short, and forced her awake gasping for air. It was coming more and more often, almost every night now. Sometimes it didn't even have the courtesy to wait until she was asleep. She'd be at the computer, at the copier, standing in Clark's barn, and suddenly it would be there, Clark throwing her into a wall, Clark strangling her, sometimes it was even Lois with a gun, or Jimmy with a knife, but really in the end it always came back to Clark.

It _always_ came back to Clark.

Because as much as she didn't want to die, didn't want to become the thing that went bump in the night, she would not be responsible for derailing Clark that way. She just wouldn't. And maybe it was presumptuous to think she'd have that much of an impact, maybe she'd be nothing more than a blip on the radar of his psyche. But frankly she had to believe she was more important than that. Because the alternative was just too painful.

So here she was, high on her own self-importance and fear and desperation, walking straight into the lion's den.

She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him in his offices at LuthorCorp, sitting behind that expansive desk, framed by a city he manipulated like a puppet, looking coolly powerful in his dark suit. Decided she probably hadn't. If she had she would have known better than to trust him years ago, would have seen him easily for what he was. Idly, he finished flipping through the file in his hands, making her wait. She wondered if it was hers, because he was just that sick. She bet he probably got off on knowing something about her she didn't know herself. Finally, he looked up with that smile that never reached his eyes.

"Chloe, to what do I owe the pleasure?" The words were perfect, the inflection cordial, almost pleased, and somehow he still managed to make the entire phrase feel like a sneer of condescension.

Someday she was going to find his vocal coach and get lessons.

But until she did, she couldn't do insinuation, or veiled threats with anywhere near the acuity of Lex, so she didn't even try. Went with her strengths, blunt and brash. "I know you're experimenting on meteor freaks."

If she'd been expecting a reaction, she would have been disappointed. Lex simply leaned back in his chair and looked at her, an amused, almost appreciative, smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Really. Everyone seems to know this except me." He gestured casually to one of the sleek leather and metal chairs. "Please, sit down, tell me all about my nefarious dealings and evil ways."

Chloe sat, acutely aware she was about to do something monumentally stupid and potentially deadly. _'Lana,'_ she thought, _'Remember he can't hurt you and keep Lana_'.

Her friendship with Lana was her ace in the hole, possibly her only source of protection. She wasn't so naïve to think it was an absolute shield. No doubt Lex could make her disappear and turn up in some plausibly tragic accident or mugging, and Lana would never be the wiser of her fiance's hand in her best-friend's death. But for all that she knew Lex was a monster, had personally stared into his abyss, she'd also seen the way he was with Lana. Heard his declaration of love through the static of a ham radio. Even Lex Luthor couldn't be that calculating all the time, so Chloe had to believe he actually felt something for her friend, would avoid doing something which would hurt Lana if she didn't force his hand.

If she was wrong. Well, God help her.

"You've been transferring the most powerful and dangerous meteor infected patients out of Belle Reve and to special facilities all over the country, where you're performing highly illegal human experiments. You've also been kidnapping latent and developing meteor-infecteds so that you can implant them with tracking devices and keep an eye on them."

"I think this is usually the part where I make the obligatory and ultimately futile protestation of my innocence."

"Don't exert the effort on my account." That got her a twitch of a smile.

"And I'm sure you have proof of all of this," he retorted in that way that said he was absolutely certain she had no such thing.

And now they came to the delicate part, the critical part. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the plain white envelope and set it on the edge of his desk, just far enough that he had to move to reach for it. Somehow the petty little powerplay gave her a feeling of control she hadn't had before.

Lex beat her at her own game. Rather than stretching across his desk, he simply stood up and walked around it, so that he was now towering over her. Perching casually on the edge he picked up the envelope and gave her a long, evaluating look. It made her squirm, made her feel like he was stripping down all her bravado and snark, and really seeing through the pretense to the scared little girl she felt like right now.

Refusing to back down she met him stare for stare, and prayed he couldn't actually hear her heart beat. Finally, he picked up a silver letter opener and with a flick of his wrist slit open the edge of the envelope, tipping its contents out on the desk.

One tiny, mangled tracking device.

For just a moment she thought she saw a flicker of recognition on his face, but it was gone so fast, she barely believed it herself. And she knew it had to have been there.

"Are you going to tell me what I'm looking at or are we playing twenty questions. We already know its not bigger than a breadbox."

"It's one of the tracking devices you used on the meteor freaks." Standing up, she unbuttoned her suit jacket and slid it off so that she stood across from him in the pretty silk camisole top she'd deliberately chosen because it left the scar on her shoulder clearly visible. "It's the one you used on me."

She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but she'd been expecting something—a sneer, a denial, a laughing accusation she was coming on to him, anything. What she got was one elegant finger tracing along the edge of the scar, in a twisted caress. His touch evoked a series of bizarre sensations she hadn't been prepared for, prickly heat along her skin, ice down her spine, rapid fire changes that left her a little dizzy, a little nauseous, and she had to fight not to hiss, not to shudder, not to give him the satisfaction of any reaction at all.

Lex's eyes flicked back to hers, a strange heat in them that told her she'd probably failed. "You should have that looked at. I can recommend a good plastic surgeon."

At his cool appraisal, all her calculation, all her planning went out the window to be replaced by swift and all encompassing rage. Unthinkingly, she lashed out, her hand landing across his cheek with satisfying smack. "You sick sonofabitch!"

She wanted to hit him again, wanted to claw out his eyes and watch him bleed. But he caught her wrists before she could act on the impulse, and backed her into the chair with such force she had to sit to keep from toppling it. Still pinning her wrists to the arms of the chair, he loomed over her, dark and intense and there.

Neither of them could seem to do anything but stare at each other, ragged breaths coming almost in sync, and Chloe was acutely aware of the smell of him, the heat of his body, the bite his hands on her wrists, the fact she was sitting there in a top that was just this side of lingerie. And for an insane moment she thought he might kiss her, thought she might let him.

It was enough to snap her out of it, and she began to struggle again. Lex just clamped down harder on her wrists. All those times she'd watched Clark toss him like a rag doll had given her a false sense of security. Lex might not be a kryptonian or a meteor freak, but he was strong in the way of normal human males, the way of will and exertion and sweat and blood.

But he was also weak in the way of normal human males.

She kicked out with her right leg, directly towards his groin, forcing him to shift quickly to avoid the blow. As it was she still managed to catch him hard in the right thigh.

With a grunt of pain, Lex released her and stepped away, out of firing range. But it still took him a minute to recover his composure, and Chloe momentarily reveled in the tiny victory.

"Well, as . . . _stimulating_," he rolled the word on his tongue like he could taste it, taste her, "as I always find our conversations, I have a board meeting in a few minutes. It was nice of you to stop by Chloe. I'll have Rebecca see you out."

Unwilling to do this staring up at him, she got to her feet.

"You don't even know why I'm here."

"Threats. Posturing. Moral sermons." He shrugged. "Really, I don't care." He reached over for the intercom, but Chloe got there first and covered the button with her hand.

"I want you to find a way to turn me off."

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All comments and criticisms greatly appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is a very particular characterization of Lex, mainly based on the idea that for all the terrible things he's done (and will continue to do for large portions of this fic) there's a kernel of something good in him. If you're of the opinion that he's pure evil at this point, you've been warned.

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**Chapter 2**

_. . . I know gamblers better than anybody. You're the caviar kind. See when you hold everything in your hand the only thing that can give you a thrill is putting your chips on the one thing that can slip through your fingers._  
-- Mikhail Mxyzptlk to Lex Luthor "Jinx"

---

Well, she had his attention.

Lex was staring at her strangely, like she'd just become something new and interesting, worthy of his notice. The look was disconcerting, and she experienced a fleeting wish to go back to being beneath his contempt, off his radar. But that was an illusion, even with their strained detente of the last year, the radio silence of her senior year, she and Lex had always been aware of each other, even as they orbited around others, around Clark, around Lana and his father, sometimes crashing together, sometimes spinning away, but never really going their separate ways.

But this was different, this was just about them. No one in the middle, no buffer.

She stepped away and moved around behind the chair that still held her now rumpled suit jacket. And okay high-end metal and leather wasn't exactly Clark Kent, but it was something, enough to let her breath again.

Lex moved his hand away from the intercom and crossed his arms. "Okay Chloe, let's say for the sake of this extremely intriguing conversation, I have the vaguest idea what you're talking about. What are you proposing?"

"You've done more research on the 'meteor rocks' and 'meteor freaks' than anyone else. I'm betting somewhere in that billion-dollar mess is the key to reversing the infection or stopping the development of an ability. I want you to find it."

"And I'm just supposed to sink a few million into this out of altruism?" he smirked, "You know better Chloe. What's in it for me?"

"Me."

With a quirk of his lips, Lex raked his eyes over her body in blatant appraisal, only coming back to meet her gaze after she'd felt them on every inch of her. "Sorry, you're not my type."

Covering the absurd mixture of irritation and relief his words caused within her, Chloe grabbed her suit jacket off the chair and slipped it on. "Don't worry, I wasn't offering sex. I'm all too aware of your Oedipal fantasies." She didn't even wait to see if the words hit their mark, just liked being able to say them. "I'm offering something better, something I'm betting you can't get any other way: A test subject."

"According to you I have a whole warehouse of those."

"No, you have a whole warehouse of fully-developed, certifiably dangerous meteor freaks. What I'm offering you is a latent meteor-infected subject, not exactly someone you can just pluck out of Belle Reve, and the opportunity to take all the samples, run all the tests you want without a potential kidnapping charge hanging over your head."

"Just the righteous indignation of Clark Kent. Forgive me if I'm less than enthusiastic."

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Clark doesn't have to know about this." Honestly, she didn't _want_ Clark to know about this, but she wasn't about to tell Lex that, she needed the threat of him too much. "Don't try to screw me and no one has to know. Double cross me on this and I'll make sure Lana and Clark both know exactly who I went to for help."

She'd do more than that. She'd destroy him from beyond the grave. She'd already written all the letters, explaining what she'd done to Lois and Clark and Lana, leaving them with information on all the scraps and half-leads she'd managed to compile on Lex in the past year and a half. It would be the equivalent of unleashing the hounds of hell. Lois alone could be pit bull, with Clark's fury and Lana's access, she'd almost be sad not to be around to see it.

But for now the letters were simply her safety net, sitting quietly in a safe deposit box no one knew existed, the key left with her uncle, which was about the only place Chloe could think of that Lex might not be able to reach. The General hadn't been happy, but he thought it was protection for a story, and understood the concept of 'need to know'. All she had to do was disappear for more than a few days and the pin on her grenade would be pulled. And if she died helping Clark on something completely unrelated? Well, the idea of destroying Lex anyway wasn't something she was about to lose sleep over.

Lex seemed to see something in her face, maybe a hint of her resolve or a recognition of his own ruthlessness reflected back to him. Whatever it was, it made him quirk his lips in appreciation.

"Look at little Chloe Sullivan, all grown up."

"Do we have a deal or not?"

"We might." He held up a hand to forestall her protest. "A little free advice. Don't push your luck when you don't hold the cards." Without waiting to hear what she might say, he reached over and punched the button on the intercom. "Rebecca, Ms. Sullivan is ready to leave now."

He turned his attention back to her. "Don't worry Chloe. I'll contact you."

Frankly, she was a little afraid of that.

---

The next week was hell. Chloe found herself second guessing her decision at least three times a day. Really, what had she been thinking getting herself involved with a Luthor again, offering herself up like some sacrificial lamb for the slaughter? It was the act of a desperate person, a crazy person.

Still she leaped for her cell phone every time it rang, felt her heart speed up every time she saw she had a new email.

She told herself they were still negotiating, that all she had to do was hear the terms of the deal. She could always refuse or try to negotiate further if she didn't like them. But really she was already in this. And she had a feeling, despite his affectation of disinterest, Lex was too. They were both a little sick that way, reckless and relentless in their pursuit of answers and understanding, the kind of people who took apart clocks just to see how they worked, who needed to know just because they didn't . . . yet.

Three years ago it had been like meeting a kindred spirit, another soul who needed the rush of unraveling mystery just as badly as she did, and for awhile they'd been something unique to each other, something simultaneously more and less than friends.

Until he'd found a quest she couldn't be a part of, and her own insatiable curiosity wouldn't let her be left behind.

She could still remember the look in his eyes when he'd gotten that first call, that wild focus, the way he'd turned to her, his excitement almost palpable, only to suddenly pull back, shut down, as though he'd had to tamp down on the impulse to tell her whatever had made him that way. For weeks she'd clung to that look, that impulse, waiting for him to pull her in. But he never did. She could feel him shutting her out, slipping through her fingers just like Clark, and she hadn't been able to stand it, wasn't able to just sit by and let it happen. So one night when he'd come to visit her at the safehouse, she'd done what she did best, gone snooping where she didn't belong.

Lex had found her too soon for her to really piece together what she was looking at. But she'd learned things that night all the same. The kinds of lines he'd cross to get what he wanted. What barely leashed rage looked like. That there were worlds between them she didn't even know existed.

That had been the last time she'd seen him that summer, and when her senior year rolled around, they were strangers once again. But even as Lex somehow managed to charm his way back to Clark's good graces, she hadn't tried to do the same with him because she'd seen something there that had scared her.

More than anything it was because she sometimes thought it hadn't scared her enough, wondered who she would have become if Lex hadn't shut down that first day.

Sometimes when she was feeling particularly self-important, she wondered if that choice might have changed him, too.

But choices got made, and people took their own paths with eyes wide open, and whatever she had recognized in Lex that summer was gone, twisted and mutated into something horribly wrong. Still that core, that need to unravel a puzzle, remained the same and she'd just dangled the opportunity to possess a critical piece in front of him.

So it didn't really come as all that much of surprise when on Friday afternoon she received a very cordial phone call from Rebecca to her phone at the Daily Planet, offering to schedule the "interview" she'd never requested for tomorrow morning.

She supposed a very trackable email was a little too much to hope for at this stage of the game.

----

It turned out the LuthorCorp offices on a Saturday morning looked exactly like the LuthorCorp offices on a Monday afternoon. Teeming with rushed, stressed ivy-league professionals in designer suits. It was enough to make you wonder how anyone ever conducted anything covert at all, until you realized no one was paying attention to anyone else.

All the same, Chloe was glad she'd dressed as though this actually was an interview for The Planet.

And the fact that she'd just been relieved she'd dressed to fit into Lex's world pissed her off enough to carry her into his offices on a pretty healthy cloud of indignation.

"I swear to God, if you kept me overnight in Metropolis just so you could tell me 'no' to my face, I'll . . ." She trailed off on her threat when she realized something critical.

He wasn't at his desk.

And she was talking to air.

Great.

"You know I've been wondering what this place needed to make it feel more like home. Turns out it was people bursting in with unfounded accusations and inarticulate threats."

She whirled to find Lex sitting on the sofa, tie off, shirtsleeves rolled up. Apparently being the boss allowed you to dress down. Not waiting for an invitation she wandered over and sat down in one the chairs adjacent to the couch. "So. Do we have deal?"

"You tell me." Lex murmured and pushed the single file folder on the coffee table over to her.

"What's this?"

"The proposal for the preliminary set of research."

With no little trepidation, Chloe opened the file and began to read. It wasn't anything she hadn't expected, a nicely outlined research plan starting with the taking of samples, followed by an fairly non-invasive set of experiments.

And it was all a lie.

Everything on the list were things she'd bet he'd gotten when he'd kidnapped her, and Lex wasn't the type to waste time like that. Closing the file, she forced herself to meet his gaze. "You want to tell me the real plan now?"

Lex had been leaning back on the sofa, watching her, now he sat forward elbows on knees, hands clasped in a posture of earnest candor that was so practiced and effective she had to remind herself not to be taken in. "We have to start somewhere, Chloe. We'll need baseline readings and a full medical workup."

"All of which you have. Cut the crap Lex. We both know you didn't go through the trouble of kidnapping me just for the implant. You already have your baseline. So lets stop pretending you don't. Level with me now, or I'm walking."

Smirking at her like she was particularly amusing and precocious child, Lex extended a hand and slid the fake research plan away from her along the glass surface of the table. "Heat and electricity."

"What?"

"The majority of people with meteor abilities developed them during the meteor shower, but not all. Others apparently did so during various accidents. But one of the commonalities that seems to exist in the majority of cases is heat and electricity."

Chloe sucked in a breath of startled surprise as what he was proposing began to sink in. "You're going to try to induce me."

"Not all the way, but I can't block a switch if I don't know where it is."

This was not what she came here for. This was crazy. What had she been thinking? No. She couldn't do this. Absolutely. Could. Not . . .

A thick file landed on the table in front of her with a _whumph_ cutting through her mental breakdown, and drawing her focus. She leaned forward in anticipation, knowing even as she did so exactly what she'd see.

It wasn't a name on the file tab, but a number. 213. Her number. She didn't have to look at him to know that, there was no other reason he'd be showing her that file. But when she reached for it, he stopped her with a hand over the folder.

"Do we have a deal?"

This was it, all the way out or all the way in. She could do this and _know_. Figure herself out, be part of solving her puzzle, and potentially put herself at Lex's mercy, or she could walk away now and go back to being Clark Kent's Girl Friday, spend the rest of her life waiting for something to happen to her.

She was so fucking tired of things just _happening_ to her, and not doing a damn thing back.

"I want you there," she looked up, forced herself to meet his eyes as she said it. "I want you to be there through every test. No blaming your minions if it goes to far. No plausible deniability. I want you to watch everything you do to me."

Not a flicker. "And?"

Chloe flexed her hand, took a ragged breath. They were down to formalities now, down to terms and conditions. Civilized board room negotiations about horrendous things. "I want access to all the research."

"No. I'll show you whats relevant to you, but if you think I'm going to give you free reign . . ." he shook his head, and smiled, whispering, "You forget. I know you, Chloe."

She smiled back, coy and false, "And I know you. You don't think I'm just going to sit here and read whatever bullshit you hand me and take you at your word."

Lex didn't answer, just stood and moved behind her, and she could hear the electronic beep of a touch pad, turned to see him swing open the safe door and take out a flat metal box. Coming back over he flipped open the box, and removed a single small vial with a bright green hue she knew all too well. Crouching down behind her, he extended the vial out in front of her so she could read the label.

_Levitas_.

"Actually, that's exactly what I expect you to do."

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Comments and criticisms always appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

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**Chapter 3**

_Lex seems like the kind of guy who lives for the fight as much as the victory._  
-- Chloe Sullivan "Fanatic"

---

_Levitas_

Chloe tried to catch her breath, tried not to stare. Knew she was failing. Knew Lex was watching every emotion playing across her face right now, and she was giving far too much away. It didn't matter. He knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

Almost unconsciously she reached up, her hand closing over the vial of its own accord, clutching at it as though to test its solidity. Lex let it go with a smile, let her feel its weight in her hand.

Answers in a bottle. Truth in the form of a designer drug.

"You're crazy," she fairly breathed the words, not sure whether she was talking to herself or him.

It wasn't until she felt Lex go still beside her that she realized what she'd said. Instinctively she turned to apologize, but the words were already so much ash on her tongue, dead false things better left unsaid, and all she could do was stare at him.

Almost as though he knew the turn her thoughts had taken Lex's mouth curved in pained, joyless amusement. "It's a popular theory." He stood. "But in this case a wrong one."

"You stopped this project."

"And then I restarted it." He came back around to the couch and sat down, spreading his hands wide. "What can I say, Chloe? You inspired me."

Somehow she doubted that. But still, here she sat with the product of a project, which by all rights should be dead. Which had almost killed her the last time she'd been exposed. She set the vial down on the table, just needing a little space from the promise of it. Took a breath. "Last time I took this I nearly died. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of this deal?"

"Well, we have managed to lower the toxicity levels, and . . ." With a soft _clink_, Lex set another vial down on the table, this one amber in color, "develop a counteragent. We actually have you to thank for that part. After all, we used your blood work as our starting point."

And if she thought invasion of medical privacy ranked anywhere on the scale of his numerous transgressions, she'd have taken the time to be angry at that revelation. But honestly, in the grand scheme of things it was so tame she just didn't care.

She licked her lips, trying to work her mind around the contours of the implied proposal. Lex seemed content to wait, let her navigate the maze by herself. Maybe lies were more convincing if you let people connect the dots on their own. "You don't expect me to believe you're just going to let me take this and start asking you all the questions I want."

"I was thinking two."

"Two."

"You're a good reporter, Chloe. I would think two is all you'd need to verify the veracity of whatever data I'm showing you. That's what you wanted isn't it? To make sure I'm not giving you false results."

"Yeah, but this," she reached out and touched the vial again, "this is a little extreme, even for you."

"Sometimes extreme measures are necessary to accomplish something worthwhile. Are you telling me you'd trust what I was showing you any other way?"

"If you gave me unfettered access to all your research," she ventured with her best intrepid reporter smile.

Lex used to like that smile, had called it audacious, and for a moment, just a moment, something like real humor might have flickered in his eyes. But he turned his head before she could be sure, and all he said in response was, "No."

"Worth a shot." She picked the vial up and turned it in the light, peered at it as though it might spill its secrets for her. "It was a gas the last time."

"We changed the delivery mechanism to injection when we dropped the toxicity. It lowers the effectiveness, but the side-effects are less troublesome."

Leave it to Lex Luthor to describe death as merely a 'troublesome' side-effect.

"So what now you get the truth a percentage of the time? Some drug."

"Let's just say people won't be spilling their innermost thoughts from a simple 'how are you'."

"How do I even know this will do what you say it will? I mean, come on, you have a safe truth serum, and you're not using it? The Lex Luthor I know would be in his dad's office or out at-" She cut herself off before the word 'Clark's' could leave her lips. God she had to watch slips like that. Suddenly a horrible thought occurred to her, and she scrambled up from her chair to stare down at him in horror. "Shit, you're not using it now are you?"

Lex looked up at her, something sharp and knowing in his gaze. "I don't know, Chloe. What might you be hiding that I'd want to know?"

She felt her pulse speed up, felt her blood rushing through her body. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. All this time, all this effort and she was going to betray Clark like this, simply because she hadn't thought everything through. Panicky, throat dry, she opened her mouth . . .

And lied.

"Nothing I can think of."

Lex just gazed back at her that awful 'we both know you're lying' look in his eyes. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he murmured, "Then I don't have a reason to use it, do I?"

Except he had every reason. Every reason in the world. And even if he didn't, he just would, for the same reason she could barely take her eyes off it now. Because there were answers in that vial, and there was power in those answers. Lex didn't willingly give up power like that. No matter how deadly or risky. No matter how poisonous or toxic. He took power in whatever form it came, however he could.

_However he could . . . No matter how poisonous, how toxic . . . not willingly . . . however he could . . ._

Chloe bit her bottom lip as her thoughts tumbled over one another and back again, like something was trying to shake itself loose. Over and over and over again until they started to make sense, interlock and form chains, until she could almost read the message, fill in the gaps. As she did, she felt a triumphant smile spread across her face, had to stifle a laugh as the realization washed over her.

"You can't use it, can you?" Even as she phrased it as a question, she knew she was right. Knew it in her gut, the way she could feel a story. All the pieces were there. Lex's body protected itself like nothing medical science had ever seen. It had been the only thing that had saved him from dying when his father tried to kill him—his body's immunity, it's incredible ability to fight a foreign entity, to resist a toxin. And at its core that's exactly what Levitas was – a toxin. So now that strength was keeping this just out of his reach. She leaned forward across the chair, and taunted him, "It must be killing you. All that research, all that money, and you can't use it because your body kicks it too fast."

The slight thinning of his lips, a tightening around his eyes was the only change in his expression, but on Lex's normally implacable visage it might as well have been a flinch, and it was more than enough to tell her she had hit her mark with vicious accuracy.

Recovering quickly, he shook his head as he flicked open the locks on the case he had placed on the table in of him. "You've always been just a little too sharp and a little too bold for your own good, haven't you?" His words held all the character of a threat or warning, but there was something odd in his voice, something not quite pleased, just . . . satisfied, maybe, like he'd gotten confirmation of something he'd been expecting. "Well, congratulations, Chloe. You've solved a puzzle."

Removing a hypodermic injector from the case, he picked up the vial of Levitas and fit it into place. Setting the injector on the table in front of her, he challenged, "Now tell me you don't want to solve another one."

She did. She really really did, and Lex knew that, was playing on it for reasons she didn't entirely understand. But she was willing to take a little risk to try to find out.

"Aren't you afraid I'll make you spill all your deep dark secrets?"

"I trust you, Chloe." At her skeptical look, he shrugged and stood. Still talking, he made his way over to water bottles and decanter of scotch he kept in the corner, just like he did at home. "You know that's really the secret of a successful partnership, a certain level of mutual trust."

"You think I trust you with anything," she scoffed.

With his back still to her he seemed to pause as though considering her question. Then twisting off the cap to one of the water bottles, he said, "I think you trust me to let you walk out of these offices."

The words were said so conversationally, in such mild pleasant, tones, it took a minute for the implication to sink in. And then it did. And Chloe's stomach lurched.

He turned, looking at her as he took a sip of the water, evaluating the impact of his words. Swallowing, he continued on just as casually as before, "But I could be wrong about that. And I might be placing too much trust in your sense of pragmatism. That's always a risk. Trust can be so easily misplaced and just like that a potentially mutually profitable enterprise is gone."

He couldn't have made his point anymore clearly if he'd taken out a gun and held it to her head.

There was an acceptable scope to what she could ask. She could verify a piece data, clarify a conclusion, maybe even inquire into the experiments. Go anywhere near the things she really wanted to know—33.1, what he was doing with that research—make herself a threat, and he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice whispered, _Get out now._

And probably had she not had years of training at ignoring that exact little voice, she would have done the smart thing and walked away. Instead, the part of her that carried a tazer and hacked secure databases, picked up the injector.

"Four questions. Every time."

Lex quirked an eyebrow.

"I want to get four questions, every time we meet. It's complex research."

"Three. You're smarter than you give yourself credit for."

She nodded. They'd both been going for three anyway.

Turning the injector over in her hands, she frowned. "I still don't know this actually does what you say it will."

"I suppose telling you to trust me is out of the question."

"Not when we're considering pharmaceutical enhancement to address that particular dysfunction in our relationship."

To her surprise Lex laughed. Not much, just a tiny snort of bitter amusement, but all the same she found her lips twitching in an answering smile. It was such a strange moment, a tenuous thread of connection across a chasm of distrust and ill will. But there it was all the same.

Lex seemed to feel it, too, and he held out one of the water bottles like a peace offering. "I promise its not poisoned."

"And I believe you." She accepted the bottle and pointedly took a healthy swallow. "See, we're growing as people already."

She wondered what wrong with her that she was the kind of person who joked with her executioner even as she felt the noose tighten around her neck. But all the same it was helping, easing a little of the tension, making her feel less brittle, less precarious, less likely to shatter at any moment. Which might be a dangerous illusion, but she needed it, couldn't keep going the way she was, or she'd never make it through this, would implode all on her own without Lex's help.

Lex sat back down on the couch. "I'll have coffee brought in next time. I'm assuming you still like the Jamaican Blue Mountain."

Chloe jerked a little at the offer, both from the fact he was continuing a conversation she'd mentally left, and the reminder that they knew more about each other than they sometimes let themselves remember. Not big or important things, but little ones—she loved the obnoxiously expensive coffee he'd stocked the safehouse with; he preferred a good samurai film over art-house noir—the kinds of intimate details you knew about a friend or a lover. But they'd been neither, and between them all those little things amounted to nothing more than a house of cards, flimsy and easily toppled because there was nothing stronger holding it together.

Trying to shake herself back into the moment, come back to the important things, she nodded dumbly. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll be fine."

It was only after she said it that she realized she'd just agreed she'd be coming back. She stared down at the injector, still clutched in her hand like a gun, and tried to figure out when she'd decided to pull the trigger.

Lex must have followed her gaze, because he gave voice to her own thoughts. "You can trust what I show you or you can trust me on this, but sooner or later you're going to have to go all in."

"It's not your life as the stakes," she snapped.

"Isn't it?"

Something about the way he said it, with just the tiniest bit of an edge, made her realize he knew exactly what kind of contingencies she must have in place. Maybe not the specifics, but he was savvy enough, had enough respect for her to understand she wouldn't walk in here without protection, and that protection would most likely be his demise. And it was true. If anything happened to her, even an innocent accident he couldn't prevent, it would be the end of him, too. Mutually assured destruction.

Strangely that made her feel a little more in control.

So here she was standing on a cliff, and she could stand here forever, or she could just have the guts to jump.

She put the injector down on the table and began to unbutton her suit coat in clumsy, jerky movements. Next time she was wearing a fucking sweatshirt and maybe a really crappy pair of jeans. "Fine," she gritted out, "but we're doing a test run. I am not just going to keep taking this and believing you and later find out its just colored water."

Folding the suit coat over the back of the chair, she sat, rolled her neck a few times and blew out what failed to be a calming breath, "Okay." She stared dumbly at the injector, belatedly realizing she didn't have the slightest clue how to use one properly. "So do I just . . . pull the trigger?"

Lex reached over and put his hand on her forearm. Ignoring her flinch, he kept it there and picked up the injector with his other hand. "Make a fist."

His touch wasn't gentle, but it was steady and confident, and she found it oddly reassuring as she watched him line the needle up to a vein on her arm, felt the prick of sharp pressure on her skin. Without realizing she was doing it, she brought her other hand up to cover his as he slid the needle home, folded her fingers over his as he pressed the release and fed the Levitas into her system.

She been waiting for something awful, thought she would collapse or feel momentarily disoriented. She didn't know why, nothing like that had happened the last time, but still she thought she would have felt _something_. Instead all she felt was a little sore on her left arm.

It was terribly anticlimatic.

"Give it a minute."

And then she felt it . . . nothing terrible or overwhelming just something . . . different, like a tickle in the back of her throat, a quickening in her blood. If she hadn't been waiting for it, she never would have noticed, just like she hadn't noticed all those years ago.

Okay, so Lex might have been telling the truth. Stranger things had happened.

"So do I just ask you questions now?"

Lex shrugged, didn't look up from switching out the vials on the injector. "That's the way it works."

She supposed that had been an easy one. "That one doesn't count. As one of my three. That one doesn't count."

He didn't say anything, so she took it as agreement.

Trying to think, she stared down at the needle mark on her arm, pressed down on it a little, like the pain might clear her head . . . Except her head wasn't fuzzy, felt just as sharp and clear as ever. Still as she did so, she realized she should have thought about this more carefully. All the questions she instinctively wanted to ask Lex wouldn't tell her anything about the effectiveness drug, because she didn't know the answers had no way to evaluate their truth. And yeah if she got him to tell her the location to 33.1 or even admit it existed she'd know she had something, but far lot of good that would do to her dead.

She needed something he wouldn't ever willingly say, but that she already knew the answer to . . . And she could only think of one thing. Asked it before she lost her nerve or recovered her sanity.

"Are you still waiting for your father to love you?"

Lex's whole body jerked, like he'd been slapped, but still he answered in one single terse word. "Yes."

"Then why try to put him in jail?"

"I thought I could get free. If he was gone, if he just had the decency to _die_ in there . . ." Abruptly he stopped, biting off whatever else he'd been about to say, and she realized she'd just witnessed a limit. You might be compelled to tell the truth, but you didn't have to keep going.

Still what he said was enough, knocked her over with the anger of it, the sheer hate in those words. She didn't understand how one person could hold something like that inside them, and before she could stop herself, she breathed, "You don't actually want him dead, do you?"

She'd just said it, barely knew she'd spoken, and it was only when his hands white-knuckled on the injector that she realized the drug didn't make that kind of distinction. He fought it longer than she would have thought possible, but eventually the answer came torn from him against his will.

"As much as you do."

The admission seemed to break something in him, and before she had a chance to apologize or explain, Lex's hand shot out, clamped down on her wrist. Yanking her forward, he slammed her forearm down on the coffee table. Chloe cried out in pain and surprise, her other hand scrabbling to try to push him away. But Lex just ignored her, roughly jabbed the injector into her forearm and released the counteragent into her bloodstream.

And just as quickly his anger seemed to dissipate, leak away with the amber liquid speeding into her blood, so that by the time the vial was empty he'd regained control. Removing the injector, he dropped it on the table, stared down at his hand, still clamped around her wrist.

"Lex," Chloe whispered, "you're hurting me."

Slowly, stiffly he forced his fingers to uncurl from her wrist, and before she could even think of anything else to say, he stood. "Did you enjoy that?"

No. She hadn't enjoyed it at all.

"If you still want to do this, we can start next week." He started walking away, paused at the door and added in a chillingly quiet voice, "Don't _ever_ do that again."

And then he was gone, and she was left with bruises on her wrist and his words echoing in her head.

_As much as you do._

It wasn't true. She'd eaten Thanksgiving with Lionel, had exchanged emails with him about Lex. He'd handed her a gun to protect herself in the middle of Dark Thursday and trusted she wouldn't shoot him the first chance she got. She didn't want him dead. Wasn't that type of person.

Except she sort of was. Sometimes when he'd look at her across the Kent's kitchen and she'd see a spark of predator he was. And sometimes when she woke up in a cold sweat remember the feel of the heat at her back as Lex's men ushered her down that tunnel, remembered that he'd been willing to destroy her father's career simply to prove he could.

So yeah, sometimes she was exactly that type of person.

And she realized that made Lex's answer probably the most honest he could have given.

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	4. Chapter 4

Plot/canon Note: Despite my efforts to keep this in line with the Season 6 world up to "Freak" we are making one change . . . Because it makes no sense to me anyway, and because I just don't feel like dealing with the huge emotional fallout that would accompany it, Lana is not pregnant in this world so we are fake baby free. This should be the only thing up to "Freak" that I'm changing. However, you should keep in mind that if it wasn't exposed by 'Freak' I consider it fair game to be messed with and manipulated, so project-Ares, Chloe's ability, etc . . . anybody's guess.

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_I'm used to living on the edge._  
-- Chloe Sullivan "Hug"

----

She sat in Lex's office longer than she'd intended, pressing her bruises and staring at the empty vial of Levitas. Mentally constructing extraordinarily detailed lists of Pros and Cons, that always came out heavy on the Cons side.

Still when Rebecca materialized beside her with a glass of water and a validated parking pass and the obvious directive to get her the hell out of Lex's office, Chloe made sure to let her know that she would be needing another appointment with Mr. Luthor

Chloe didn't know what the receptionist thought was going on, but if she had an ounce of natural curiosity she hid it astonishingly well. Just smiled, and said she'd pass on the message in a way that made you feel like it was the first thing on her high priority list.

Rebecca might be Lex's most formidable weapon. Chloe decided she kind of hated her.

She took the long way back to Smallville, needing the extra space from what she'd just done. Finding the alt-rock station on her radio, she cranked the volume and put the top down on her car, and tried to let the overabundance of sound drown out the thoughts in her head.

Rebecca called at the start of her shift at the Planet on Monday evening, to tell her 'Mr. Luthor' would like to meet her at 3 p.m. on Thursday. This time the appointment came with an address in the warehouse district on the outskirts of Metropolis.

When she hung up, Chloe stared down at the time and address she'd instinctively scrawled in her reporter's code, traced over the words a few more times until they were a hard pen-ink tattoo in her notebook. She ran her thumb along the indentations, smudging the ink and turning her skin blue.

There were words for what she was now—collaborator, sympathizer, turncoat—labels that came with their own punishments and special circles of hell.

Absently, she brought the side her thumb to her mouth and sucked, trying to taste the words in the metallics of the ink. When she couldn't, she told herself it was because they weren't true.

The explanation lost its comfort when she had to lie to Clark about why she couldn't come over for dinner on Thursday.

----

The address Rebecca gave her led to an apparently abandoned building in the seedier part of the Metropolis warehouse district. Chloe actually drove past it three times before she realized the unlit shell that looked like it was held together with graffiti and a prayer, was her destination. When she did all she could manage to do was sit in the car and stare in disbelief.

Lex and his goddamned flair for the dramatic.

A sharp rap on her window jerked her attention away from the building. Then someone was opening her drivers-side door, and Chloe had to bite back a scream as she fumbled for her tazer.

Lex leaned down in the doorway. "Neighborhood this bad. You should really lock your doors."

She wished she had found her tazer.

"Go to hell."

Ignoring his proffered hand, she got out and cast a disparaging look towards the black Audi she supposed he considered inconspicuous.

Lex just smirked as if to say 'I can afford it,' which of course he could.

Glaring at him, daring him to say one word, she hit the lock button on her keys. Other than a slight flare of amusement in his eyes at the _chirp_ of the alarm, Lex remained obediently quiet.

Then he just turned and started towards the building. Because she wasn't going to trail after him like a dog, Chloe kept right on standing in the middle of the alley.

Apparently realizing she wasn't following, Lex stopped and looked at her. "Don't you want to see all the trouble I've gone to for you?"

The inner rooms of the building were as modern and sleek and sterile as the outer facade was dilapidated. Chloe looked around in a mixture of awe and no little fear. The equipment alone must have cost upwards of half a million, not to mention the security measures and the three scientists who were looking at her expectantly. She knew Lex was rich, knew he was powerful, but knowing and seeing the physical manifestation of it in such a tangible way were two totally different things.

"Well, I would say that I'm impressed, but I bet you do this for all the girls."

"You'd be surprised," Lex murmured, and there was something in his gaze that made it feel dangerously close to a compliment.

Ignoring the disconcerting mixture of feelings that created in her, Chloe crossed her arms and looked up at him in challenge. "So. Where do we start?"

-----

The pain in her leg was awful. She'd experienced worse. Clark's heat vision on her shoulder. The thawing of her limbs following the near hypothermia in the Yukon. Lying in the grass outside Lex's mansion, feeling every broken bone and shard of glass right before she lost consciousness. She knew any one of those experiences was ten times more excruciating than what she was going through right now.

But her body didn't fucking remember those times right now. As far as it was concerned this was the worst thing she had ever put it through and it was going to make her pay.

"Argghhh" she clamped her jaw tighter, trying to swallow the exclamation, refuse Lex the satisfaction of a scream as the pain shot through her once again.

And then it was gone and she was left panting and sick. Leaning her head back she listened to the voices go on around her.

"I think that's enough for tonight." That was Jacobsen, the doctor brought in to see to her vitals.

"Very well." That was Lex. His voice so completely unaffected, you'd think they were discussing whether or not to change the oil on his car.

The thought that he viewed her that way, like some inanimate object he could make all the decisions for managed to make her angry enough to push back through the pain.

"No." Three heads turned to stare at her. Struggling to sit upright and look like competent human being, she repeated her refusal. "No. We talked about this. Three successive pulses of increasing intensity to be able to measure the changes. Two points don't give you line. Three do. Just give me some time to recover, and we can do it again."

Lex just looked at her for a long uncomfortable moment reading her resolve. Without looking away, he asked, "Doctor?"

"Her vitals are at the upper limits, but they're not outside the acceptable ranges we set."

"Hall?"

The elder scientist looked up from his computer screen. "I've always maintained a third data point is necessary."

If Hall had his way, they'd have twenty data points. The man was more computer than human being.

"All right." Lex looked down at his watch. "Give her the maximum amount of time to recover and then call me and we'll do it again." He turned to make his way towards the door.

It was enough to make Chloe give him that scream she'd been fighting back. "Don't you dare walk out!" Lex pulled up short, like the words were a choke collar. "I mean it. The deal was you stay. Walk out now and this is done."

"I need to make a phone call."

She set her jaw. "Then you can make it here."

Lex rolled his eyes, but flipped open the phone, and thumbed one of the numbers on speed dial. After a few seconds of waiting for someone to pick up, he spoke.

"It's me." At the warmth in his voice, Chloe's eyes flew to his in realization. "I'm going to have to meet you at the gallery opening. There's something I have to finish up here, before I can get away." Lex's gaze stayed on her as he listened to the conversation on the other end. Listened to _Lana_ on the other end. "I'm afraid it's very important. Tell you what, have Davis take you in the car, and I'll drive you back, or if we're tired we can just spend the night in the city."

All the while he kept looking at her, kept watching her as if daring her to look away. Chloe wanted to. She really did, but she couldn't, just couldn't. He was talking to Lana about their social engagements, and watching her. And she couldn't stop staring.

Chloe sucked in a shaky breath. Suddenly it was all too much for her, too incredibly disorienting, to have her real life slam into this strange separate world that wasn't supposed to include anyone else.

They'd been doing this for two weeks now, meeting at different times in this neutral no-man's land of a lab that seemed detached from everything else—Smallville, Metropolis, her life, his. And for a little while as she'd stared at him while the electrical pulses ripped through her leg, she forgot. Forgot about Clark and Lana, forgot about the Planet and Jimmy, forgot about all the normal parts of her life until all she was left with was the pain and Lex.

And now here real life was slamming back into her with nearly physical force. And she couldn't take it.

Twisting around, she bent her head over the guard-rail of the bed and threw up.

"Lana, I have to go." Apparently not waiting for a response, Lex snapped his phone closed, and looked over at Jacobsen. "Is she okay?"

"I'm not deaf." Chloe gritted out.

Lex ignored her and repeated the question. "Is she okay?"

"I'm fine." Accepting the cup of water from Jacobsen, she commanded, "Tell him, I'm fine."

"Despite all evidence to the contrary?" Lex asked sardonically.

"Despite all evidence to the contrary."

Lex looked up and had some wordless conversation with Jacobsen over her head, that Chloe didn't even try to follow. But apparently it did not add up to her being fine, because Lex said "We're done for the night."

"I said-"

But Lex, who had already stepped back to let Jacobsen remove the sensors, interrupted her with a shake of his head. "You're no use to me damaged." Well at least she knew he wasn't getting sentimental about it. "I'll see you in two days with the results."

Unable to help herself, she called out, "Tell Lana I said hi."

-----

That night after one of Lex's men drove her home in her car, she laid awake longer than her body really wanted thinking about what had happened.

She'd gotten lucky the past two weeks. Clark had been gone more than usual, investing all his energy in tracking down the escapees from the Phantom Zone in his effort not to think about Lana and Lex. Lois had been investing all of her focus in the Inquisitor, in an effort not to think about Oliver. Jimmy had been sweetly attentive in his renewed efforts as the world's most perfect, if slightly insecure, boyfriend, but she'd managed to deflect any requests for extended periods of time together.

Yet, at the slightest hint of one world crashing into the other, she'd lost it.

She couldn't afford that kind of weakness. Not when Lex obviously didn't have a problem with it at all.

He'd stood there talking with Lana, watching her like she was nothing. Like she was a project.

Which she supposed she was.

Just a project. Just a subject, a number. 213. And who the hell cared what you did to a number?

She had to find a way to make him _see_ her. See Chloe. See Lana's maid of honor. Clark's friend. His damn co-conspirator. She wanted him to connect her to pieces of his life, what little human pieces were left in him. Because she was scared of what would happen if he didn't.

And she had to find a way to toughen up. Because she obviously couldn't keep things separate forever.

Twenty hours later she was still trying to figure out a plan when the answer dropped in her lap . . .

In the form of Lana Lang.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: All feedback, even any criticisms, is greatly appreciated. I just like to know people are reading.

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**Chapter 5**

_People have a lot of different sides and sometimes they keep those sides hidden even from the ones that they love._

-- Chloe Sullivan "Onyx"

-----

"Thanks again for doing this, Chloe. I really appreciate it."

"And you should. Because spending my day sampling food I couldn't afford with a week's pay . . . totally above and beyond my duties as your maid of honor. I had at least ten better offers for today."

Lana laughed and cast a meaningful look around the mansion's main hall, overflowing with samples of elegant place settings and obscenely beautiful flower arrangements that frankly clashed with the weaponry decorating the walls. "It is kind of surreal isn't it?"

No. What was surreal was helping to plan a wedding with the bride when you'd spent the other day staring at her fiance across the exam room in his secret lab, hooked up to so many sensors and probes you were starting to feel like the Bionic Woman.

This. This was just . . . hell.

But she had officially put on her good friend hat for the afternoon, so she managed a smile and quipped, "Aaah, the perils of marrying into Metropolis society."

Lana's smile flickered. Not much, but enough. And it was happening more and more the closer they got to the wedding. Chloe didn't know whether Lana thought she was hiding it or just couldn't help it, but the second thoughts, the growing doubts were there for anyone with eyes to see. She just hoped Lex was a little bit blind.

She heaved a mental sigh. She should leave this alone. She really should. Lana was a big girl, and she'd made her bed, complete with its thousand thread-count sheets. She should just let her lie in it.

Except there was the guilt.

Heaping massive piles of guilt. Because she was lying to Lana. Every. Single. Day. Every time she got fitted for her bridesmaid's dress, or had a bachelorette party and didn't shout at the top her lungs "You're marrying a monster!" Every time she didn't tell Lana about all the things she knew Lex had done because that would mean explaining about Clark, too. Every time she smiled and kept her mouth shut, she felt like she was betraying her friend.

Even today . . . no, make that especially today. Because she wasn't here out of the goodness of her heart or even as a supportive if slightly dubious friend. In fact if she'd had her way, she would have turned Lana down, come up with some pressing story that had to be written at the Planet, some reason not to do this. Except for one thing . . . She wasn't doing this for Lana.

She was doing this for herself. She was doing this to get to Lex.

When Lana had approached her in the Talon last night, with that slightly defensive posture she had come to adopt when approaching any of them these days, Chloe knew before she even opened her mouth that it would be something Lana didn't think she'd agree to do. And that meant it was something involving Lex.

It was like manna from heaven.

She'd been letting Lex separate her, mentally remove her from his life, keep her compartmentalized in that lab.

She wanted to get to him, invade his world. She wanted him to hear about her from Lana, wanted him to see her around the mansion, wanted her name to come up in casual conversation all the time. She wanted him to run his experiments knowing he might have to face her somewhere normal tomorrow.

And there stood her opportunity in designer jeans and custom boots.

Which was why even though her left leg still hurt like hell, and all she wanted was to be curled up in a ball in her apartment, she was here, with a false smile on her face, pretending to care about a wedding that shouldn't happen.

Which was yet another reason to leave Lana's growing indecision alone.

And so in a frightening act of willpower and cold calculation, she did exactly that—mentally pushed aside the momentary crack in Lana's mask and stopped thinking about Clark's broken heart and made the conscious decision to just let the pretense ride.

Because it gave her access.

Maybe Lex wasn't the only one who had figured out how to detach.

Clamping down on that disturbing thought, she sat, forcing her slight grimace of pain into what she hoped was a convincing smile. "So, were you just desperate for a little girl time and figured this was the best way you could bribe me, or did Lex actually blow you off?"

Just because she wasn't actively undermining didn't mean she had to support the bastard.

Lana shot her a look, and then sighed. "He had to work. He's had some big new project over the past few weeks that's been taking up a lot of his time, and now he has to catch up."

Chloe bit the inside of her lip and tried to look vaguely scornful, but something inside her clenched with the knowledge that this big new project was most likely _her_. So now she wasn't just keeping Clark's secrets from Lana, but Lex's as well. How had they all come to this? How had the innocent friendships and romantic attachments of six years ago, become this tangle of divided loyalties and necessary allegiances and hidden sides?

"Besides I don't really think wedding planning is Lex's thing," Lana continued, blissfully oblivious to Chloe's inner turmoil. "In his mind this is what you hire people for."

"Lex would probably hire people to brush his teeth if he could." _Not undermining, Chloe. Remember, not actively undermining._ But the spasm shooting up her left calf was making that little vow hard to remember.

Lana actually managed a good-natured, if slightly brittle, laugh at that. "Well, I can't say I disagree with him this time. There are over four hundred people on the invitation list, and I barely know any of them. I'm not even sure how many of them Lex actually knows. This isn't a wedding. It's a business meeting in black-tie."

She'd been doing pretty well up until that point, but the last words came out hard and bitter and more than a little resentful.

"Not exactly the fairytale wedding you dreamed of?" Chloe observed dryly.

Lana shook her head. "Not even close." She sighed. "Lex thinks I'm crazy for not letting the wedding planner do more of this, but I just want to feel some kind of control, you know? Make it a little bit mine."

Chloe made herself nod in sympathy, as though she knew exactly what "a little bit mine" would mean for Lana, but honestly she didn't. Wasn't entirely sure Lana even knew what it meant. The girl was a cipher, a chameleon. The small town girl who dreamed of Paris. The Parisian sophisticate who was perfectly at home looking forward to a life on the Kent farm. The college student who had slid into the high-society world of Lex Luthor with the ease of someone born to it. Lana seemed to take on the imprint of whoever she was with, becoming what they wanted or needed her to be.

She used to think it was because Lana was still finding herself, trying on new personas until she found the one that fit. But as she'd watched Lana struggle to get over Clark, becoming this different person as she moved on with Lex, she'd been struck by a startling realization. At her core, Lana Lang was a survivor, adapting to what the situation demanded because no one had ever told her she was strong enough to make the situation different.

A better friend would tell her that now. Keep telling her until she believed it.

Instead she said, "Well, as long as making it a little bit yours includes mimosas and an extensive sampling of the dessert options, I'm in."

Lana's laugh sounded genuinely happy for the first time all day.

And Chloe told herself that was all she owed anyone.

---

"You don't think its too much?" Lana asked eying the three half eaten desserts they'd selected from the offerings after careful and exhaustive study.

Chloe swallowed a bite of the chocolate torte she'd been working on and scoffed. "Of course its too much. What's the point of marrying a Luthor if you can't do something to excess?"

"Trying to encourage Lana bankrupt me already, Chloe?"

At the sound of Lex's voice, Chloe's spine stiffened and her heart picked up speed with anxiety and adrenaline. _This was you wanted_, she reminded herself, something inside her going still and cold with resolve, as she did. Riding on that reminder, she half turned in her chair to find him leaning in the doorway watching them with an open, charming smile on his face that she didn't recognize.

"Lex," Lana recovered from the surprise first and made her way over to door. Letting him wrap a casual arm around her waist in greeting she led him over to the table. "We've been trying to decide on desserts."

"And raiding the champagne too apparently," he observed, picking up one of the half-drunk mimosas as he sat down.

"All part of my devious plan."

The moment she said it, Chle knew she had made a mistake. Lex's gaze slanted over to her, surveyed her with piercing assessment that made her skin crawl, and she knew he knew--knew she wasn't here out of any genuine interest. Inexplicably, the corner of his mouth curved in a strange half-smile of cold admiration. Then just as fast it was gone and he turned his attention back to Lana, once again the inoffensive, adoring groom. "So have we come to a decision?"

"No." Lana mock pouted, "We are hopelessly stalled. Chloe's advocating the Black Forest torte. I'm a fan of the fruit trifle. But there's a reason these caterers are known for their lemon cake." She held up a forkful of the lemon cake for Lex to taste. "_You_ are going to have to be our tie-breaker."

Chloe rolled her eyes and went back to her torte. "For the record, I'm actually advocating for you to serve all three."

"And for the record, I've told her she's crazy." Lana retorted.

Lex frowned thoughtfully and picking up a fork went to dig into a piece of the Black Forest Torte . . . specifically the one sitting on Chloe's plate.

Instinctively she blocked him with her own fork, Lex immediately parried, leading to some light but intent sparring of utensils, the same way they used to fight over her dad's baked goods at the safehouse.

Then Lana laughed, a tiny bubble of perfect pure joy, and it was enough to break the moment. Pulling up at the sudden realization of what she'd been doing, Chloe abruptly stopped her defense, and pushed the plate away. Lex's fork paused, and he looked over at her. She looked away. Without further comment, he took a bite of the torte, his eyes flickering closed in the slightest expression of pleasure. After he was done, he turned to Lana and said, "Why not?"

Lana looked confused. "Why not what?"

"Serve all three. Shock Metropolis society with our excess."

She just gaped at him, then her features suffused with a glow of incredulous pleasure. "You're serious."

Smiling down at her, Lex touched his fingers to Lana's cheek. "Have I ever successfully denied you anything?"

Chloe picked up her mimosa, resisted the urge to down the rest of it in one strong gulp. Watching Lex interact with Lana had never bothered her before, aside from the obvious concern for her friend. But now it got to her for an entirely different reason, one which shocked her, made her a little sick.

Except for that momentary flicker when he looked at her, this Lex wasn't anyone she knew. He was softer, gentler, all dull edges and muted colors.

She didn't like it. Didn't like the idea that there was a whole side to Lex she hadn't figured out yet, because it made him unpredictable, and she didn't like the idea that Lana was marrying only half a man or, worse, one who didn't exist at all.

But most disturbing . . . a little part of her missed the other Lex, the vibrant knife-edge predator who'd watched her across the lab, and smiled at her efforts to play him, because he was at least closer to the man she'd known over her junior-senior summer, to the man who sparred for food like he meant it and would just say that he didn't like the damn lemon cake.

Wanting to get away from that feeling, she finished her mimosa and got up from the table.

Too quickly.

Pain shot up her left leg and it started to buckle under her weight, blindly she reached out for the back of the chair, came into contact with a strong arm instead. And then she was being guided back to her seat.

"Chloe?!" Lana exclaimed, coming around beside her, "Are you okay?"

"Never took you for a lightweight." Lex commented mildly as he withdrew his hand from where it still rested on her elbow.

Lana shot him a reproachful look, but Chloe found herself grateful for the cue because she hadn't been thinking clearly enough to come up with a lie yet. "Yeah," she managed a shaky laugh, "I guess all that champagne just went to my head."

Lana was still looking at her strangely.

"Really, I'm fine. Just got a little dizzy for a second. But I'm good now." To prove herself, she stood again, pleased that she could do it this time without incident.

All the same, she could feel Lex watching her intently out of the corner of his eye.

"Maybe you shouldn't go home yet." Lana ventured.

Okay this was officially getting out of hand.

"It's not that big a deal."

"Actually Chloe, I was hoping I could borrow you for a few minutes anyway. Just to get your thoughts on something." He stood and touched Lana lightly on the shoulder, turning her attention to him, "You don't mind, do you?"

Somehow Lex managed to layer the request so that even as it implied something to do with the wedding and Lana, Chloe could still hear the unspoken demand underneath. Shit. She had half a mind to walk out now, just for effect.

"Really?" Lana smiled coquettishly, a light teasing tone entering her voice, "And what might that be?"

Lex just bent down and kissed her cheek and shook his head. "A man has to be able to keep a few secrets from his bride-to-be."

Chloe nearly choked on her tongue.

"Well, as long as Chloe doesn't mind. I suppose I can spare her."

"Oh, I'm sure she will want to help with this." They both turned to look at her expectantly.

Chloe sighed and shrugged. "With an offer like that . . . How can I say no?"

Smiling one last time at Lana, Lex headed out of the room. Chloe made to follow, but as she did Lana touched her lightly on the arm.

"Thank you."

"Hey, as good as those desserts were I should be thanking you."

"No, I mean thank you for what you're doing with Lex." Chloe gaped, felt a cold dread overtake her, then Lana continued, "I know how you feel about him, but the way you acted around him today . . . well, it means a lot that you were willing to pretend for me." Lana stood and hugged her. "I knew you were going to be an amazing maid of honor."

Dumbly, Chloe returned the hug, fought back the tightness in her throat. She felt small and awful and manipulative. And yet she knew she was going to keep right on doing this, for all the wrong, completely selfish reasons that had nothing to do with Lana's happiness. So all she said was, "Yeah, well, you're my friend, and you're totally worth it."

Then before Lana could heap anymore undeserved praise on her, she went to find Lex.

Ironically, she was looking forward to the honesty of that conversation.

---

Lex closed the doors to the library behind them, and when he turned all traces of the man he'd been with Lana were gone. Once again deadly and mesmerizing, he just looked at her, hands in his pockets, waiting for her to explain herself.

Chloe crossed her arms and looked right back. He could wait until hell froze.

Letting out a breathless chuckle, he walked past her to the scotch and poured a small measure. Then to her surprise he came back over and handed it to her.

She stared down at the rock crystal glass in disbelief, then back up at him. "You don't actually think I'm going to drink this, do you?"

Sighing in exasperation, he removed the drink from her hands and took a sip, then offered it back to her. "Because we both know it wasn't the alcohol in there."

Because he was right, and because her leg still hurt, and because she didn't like the amused challenge in his eyes, she took a healthy swallow, glad Lois's affinity for the General's liquor cabinet had acquainted her to taste of scotch at the tender age of thirteen. Not surprisingly, this was better than the General's, and she understood his had been pretty good.

Lex smiled and moved over to the chair. Sitting down, he gestured to the couch across from him. "Have a seat Chloe."

Since it was either accept the invitation or continue to stand before him like a supplicant, she sat, careful to place the glass of scotch on the table in front of her so she wouldn't be tempted to continue drinking it. "I'm assuming there's a reason you drug me in here."

Lex's gaze immediately went to her left leg. "How bad is it?"

"How bad do you think?"

"All the time or intermittent?"

"It comes and goes."

"Has it at least gotten better since Wednesday?"

Chloe pressed her lips together and thought about the question. She'd gotten used to the pain that came after the sessions. It wasn't constant, and wasn't anything near as intense as the actual tests, just more of a really bad cramp down her thigh, and it always faded . . . eventually. "A little better, I guess."

"Have you taken anything for it?"

She shook her head. "I tried a couple of over the counter drugs at first, but they don't really do anything. So I stopped."

"You should have asked. I could have gotten you something stronger."

"Yeah, cause I'm gonna trust that the drugs you all give me are just supposed to relieve pain."

Pursing his lips, he got up and came around to sit on the coffee table in front of her. Resting his elbows on his knees he leaned close, and said in a low voice, "You trust me to take you to labs no one else knows about and hook you up to wires, and pump electricity through your body. You trust me to turn you off rather than on when we finally find this switch we're looking for."

"Don't remind me, or I'll reevaluate my decisions."

He ignored her and kept going, everything about him intent and insistent. His body so close his leg brushed hers and she could feel his sweep of his breath on her skin. "You trusted me the first time you took the Levitas, and you trust that I haven't switched it out every time since then."

She turned her head slightly away from him, closing her eyes against all the reasons this was a monumentally stupid thing she was doing.

Still Lex kept talking. "I like to think that I haven't betrayed that trust. That I've kept my part of this bargain."

"I'm sure you have your reasons for doing so."

He paused at that, and when he spoke again, his voice was like chipped ice. "And you don't think I have a reason to make sure you're not suffering through needless pain?"

"I don't know, Lex, do you?"

"I told you. You're of no use to me damaged."

"And that's all that matters, isn't it? What's 'of use' to you?" She hated her voice right now, hated that she sound so tired and disappointed.

Lex got up, taking the scotch with him. "You came to me with a business proposition, Chloe. Don't start berating me for treating this as exactly that." He walked over to the desk, picked up the phone, "I'll have Dr. Jacobsen write you a prescription. You can take it to any pharmacy you choose and have them confirm that it will do exactly what it says."

Twisting around to look at him over the back of the couch she held up her hand in protest. "Don't bother. I don't want to go around in some kind of Vicodin induced haze."

Lex paused, considering, "What about a Lidocaine patch? See whether that can give you any relief."

She was about to turn him down, but another spasm shot up her leg in protest, and she had to sink back down on the couch, stretching her leg out. Lex took that as a 'yes' and made the call.

When he hung up, he came over and sat on the arm of the couch. Chloe half-opened her eyes and looked up at him expectantly.

"You can pick the prescription up from office any time you're in Metropolis. Use it, or don't, as you need it." She just nodded. If he was waiting for a 'thank you' he could just keep waiting.

After a minute she muttered, "I should probably go." But the words didn't hold any kind of conviction. The couch was comfortable and her leg still hurt.

Lex just took a sip of the scotch, and then extended it out to her.

She took it, but didn't do anything other than hold it as she continued to sit resting her head on the back of the couch. Finally, without opening her eyes, she asked, "So what are you going to tell, Lana, about this conversation?"

"Exactly what I said."

"She thinks we're discussing the wedding. That you've got some surprise planned for her."

"What makes you think I don't?"

That was enough to get her to open her eyes again, and she looked up at him frankly. "Do you? Maybe you should tell me. Makes a better lie."

Without a word, Lex got up and went over to the book shelf safe. Pulling out a flat velvet box, he brought it over to her.

There was something about the way he gave it to her, a hesitancy in his touch, that infected her, made her open the box slowly with something almost approaching reverence.

There sitting on a palate of immaculate white silk was the most stunning necklace she had ever seen. A network of diamonds and amethysts, twined together almost like vines, inlaid in a delicate setting of what she guessed was white gold.

"It was my mother's."

Of course it was. Looking at it now, she could see that it was an older piece, from the clasp to the style, but that didn't make it any less beautiful. Still for all the history, for all the beauty and sentiment, something about the piece left her . . . cold. There was no thought here, nothing of Lana, or even really of Lex, just glittering jewels and the ghost of a dead woman who sometimes seemed more fantasy than memory.

"You don't like it." Lex's voice was flat, tight, and she realized too late how closely he'd been watching for her reaction.

Closing the box she handed it back to him and shrugged. "What does it matter, what I think? I'm sure Lana will love it."

Features tightening into a brittle mask, Lex stood and muttered, "You're usually a better liar."

Chloe sat back in shock. What the hell had just happened? So she didn't like the wedding gift. Who the fuck cared? She wasn't the one he was marrying. Maybe Lana would love it. Chloe was sure she'd at least put on a convincing show of loving it.

But honestly, she wasn't all that sure Lana would like it anymore than she had. And that she realized was the problem. Lex had been using her as the barometer of Lana's reaction, and she'd given him the worst one.

With sinking cold certainty, she realized something . . . Lex was nervous. Just like any other man he was nervous about making his bride-to-be happy, and just like any other man he was botching it as often as he was getting it right.

There was something disturbingly human about that, and Chloe downed the rest of the scotch to chase it.

Gingerly, making sure she wasn't going to have an embarrassing repeat of earlier in the banquet room, she stood. "Well, I should probably go."

"I trust Lana doesn't know the real reason you suddenly felt this surge of friendly interest in her nuptials."

She stiffened and spun around to face him, where he stood by the desk, once again unflappable and composed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Lex's mouth thinned to a tight line. "Then I suppose its nothing more than a coincidence that you've come to me for help, and now you're here?"

Chloe crossed her arms and held her ground. "Lana came to me. I'm just trying to be good friend."

"Which I'm sure you'll continue to be when our arrangement is over."

"Lex, if you've got some problem, just come out and say it."

"Lana doesn't have as many real friends as she'd like, and I know that her relationship with me has strained the ones she does have." Putting his hands in pockets he walked over to stand in front of her, just a fraction too close, "So the thought that someone might come in here and pretend to reestablish contact with her to get to me? Well that bothers me."

Even as Lex's words hit a sore spot, Chloe felt something white hot sweep through her at the accusation that she'd somehow abandoned Lana before. "I have _always_ been Lana's friend. And I will continue to be her friend no matter what, even if she actually winds up marrying you. She asked me to help with the wedding, and as long as she keeps asking me . . ." she shrugged, "I'll keep saying yes. So unless you want to explain to her why I'm not welcome here anymore . . . get used to it."

They stood there glaring at each other, but it was a Mexican standoff. Lex had her number, but she also held the upper hand here. As long as Lana kept asking her to be involved, there was no way for him to stop her from coming around without looking like a jealous, possessive jerk, and she planned to volunteer her services as often as possible.

Finally Lex took a fractional step back and gave her an ironic smile. "Then I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other."

"I guess we will."

With that Chloe spun on her heel and made her way to the door, but as she turned the handle, she was hit with a series of images--the tiny cracks in Lana's mask of happiness; the hesitancy in Lex's touch as he handed her his mother's necklace, his voice when he asked it she thought he wouldn't care if she suffered pain. It was insane and confusing, and before she could stop herself, she said, "A decorating budget."

Lex didn't say anything, but she could feel that she had his attention.

Half-turning, she sighed and continued, "You should give Lana the opportunity to redecorate some of the rooms here. So far you've brought her into your world, and its pretty and glamorous and probably really overwhelming, but nothing here is hers. Everything is you. For the wedding you should give her the opportunity to make a home here."

She was too far away to read Lex's expression, which was obscured by the light coming through the stained glass window, and though she waited he didn't say anything in response.

Chloe felt suddenly stupid. She didn't know why she thought he'd thank her, or even care what she thought would be a good gift for Lana. Shrugging it off, she swallowed, and said lightly, "Well, anyway that's just an idea."

Not waiting to hear another scornful silence, she turned and fled.

- + - + - + - + -


	6. Chapter 6A

A/N: I am working on an update to Christmas in Metropolis, but I'm still working through the backlogs of Collaborator chapters for here, so I thought I'd post the next one.

- + - + - + - + -

**Chapter 6A**

_You look at the stars Clark. Some of them have been extinguished for thousands of years, but their light is only reaching us now. The past is always influencing the present._

-Lex Luthor "Obscura"

-----

"Have a nice evening?" Lex didn't even bother to look up from the file he was paging through when Chloe walked in, but the smug note in his voice told her he could see her out of his peripheral vision and knew exactly what kind of evening she'd had.

Lois had barged into their apartment yesterday with the suggestion of an impromptu night of bar-hopping in Metropolis. While it usually wouldn't have been her first choice for a Saturday night, there had been something desperate in Lois's enthusiasm that screamed 'I need this', and Chloe had never been able to turn her back on her cousin. Plus, there had been the added benefit that Lana was already there talking about wedding favors, and inviting her to come with them just disproved Lex's assertion that she was only doing this to get to him . . .

If you ignored the tiny thrill of satisfaction Chloe'd gotten when Lana had left a voicemail telling Lex where she was going and who she was with.

Lex's retaliation had come in the form of a terse, but to the point text. 'Results. 7:00 am.'

The sad thing was, even though she'd just finished her fourth body-shot of tequila when she got it, she never even thought to tell him no. There was something about this thing that had taken over their lives, become prevailing and all important. They met whenever they could—6:00 am before Lex took a jet overseas, after midnight when she finished her shift on the night-call line. She knew of at least one social engagement Lex had blown off to keep the experiments from being delayed, and she had at least two dates she owed Jimmy because she hadn't wanted to wait to find a better time.

The progress was minimal, but it didn't matter. They were, in short, obsessed.

So here she was at the lab, at seven am on a Sunday morning, in smoky, sweaty club clothes, suffering through a not-insignificant hangover. All because Lex had dangled the irresistible carrot of 'results' before her.

Crossing her arms she dropped down onto the other end of the couch and gave him the only response his behavior merited, "Bite me."

Lex just handed her the cup of coffee he'd been drinking.

Chloe accepted it automatically, not even thinking to protest or look for another mug. Ever since she'd refused to drink his scotch, he made a point of sharing anything he gave her to eat or drink. She knew it was a purely mocking gesture, a dig at her over-caution when there were so many other ways he could take advantage of their arrangement. Yet there was something about the whole ritual of it . . . the strange not-quite intimacy of 'breaking bread' together in this way.

There was still nothing comfortable or easy about their interactions, but slowly and surely they were, for lack of a better word, becoming . . .

Stable.

The fleeting thought made something twist in her gut, and she groaned as last night's tequila shots started to dance with the acid of the coffee. "I hate you."

"Should I take that to mean I won't be taking my fiance to brunch this morning?"

Lana had had _way_ more to drink, for reasons Chloe refused to think about, and the mental picture of Lex even trying to get her out of the expensive hotel room his platinum card had paid for anytime before noon just made her smile. Then wince because the smile hurt.

"You'd have to wake up Lois. I'd pay money to see that."

Lex glared at her. "Why is Lane there?"

"Because Lana offered us a hotel room." Then the disconnect of that sunk in—Lana had been too drunk to arrange for anything like that—and she groaned, "You got us a hotel room."

"I got you and Lana a hotel room. Your cousin wasn't part of the deal."

"Very mature. Really, the two of you are like children, he insulted me, she doesn't like me. Blah Blah Blah."

It was true. Lex and Lois had an elementary school dislike of each other that was really more smoke than fire. There were some days when she appreciated it, sought out Lois exactly for her cousin's pure and simple detestation of a man around whom everyone else's feelings seemed to be so cluttered and murky. Even Clark for all his deep-seeded resentment over Lana, and acid loathing of Lex's actions, couldn't seem to bring himself to hate Lex with the kind of simple purity that Lois did. And there were times when her cousin's hatred was exactly what she needed. Like a clean knife-edge lancing a boil, she used it pierce through the occasional false feeling of connection that sometimes got manufactured by this situation.

Like right now when he was looking at her with an expression that was somehow both a rather imposing scowl of displeasure and a barely restrained smirk of amusement, and she felt like laughing simultaneously at him and for him. Instead, she closed her eyes against the impulse and grumbled, "That lamp is just cruel."

Lex looked up absently at the bright halogen reading lamp he'd bought at her insistent so she could work from the couch, one of a dozen compromises he'd made in outfitting this windowless bunker of an office where they now spent any working time that didn't involve her being hooked up to monitors. When she'd realized he'd built a lab just for her that had been overwhelming and more than a little scary. But when together they'd created an office, that had been the moment she'd realized how deeply she was in this.

He looked back over at her, an ironic smile twitching at the corner of his mouth "It's going to be hard to read the results without it."

She was so not in the right frame of mind for this meeting. She should be sharp, on her guard. Instead she was doing stupid things like wanting to laugh for him and reflecting on lamps. Her mind felt like it was moving through molasses, and she was surly and lethargic and frankly just wanted to be back in bed.

She should just get up and leave. She should totally get off this couch, walk out on him, and go back to the hotel room . . .

Where she would have to deal Lois's pain and Lana's doubts, and have to be strong and happy for other people. At least here she could be tired and bitch and not give a damn about her company's feelings. And it really was a very comfortable couch.

Shifting down into the cushions, she took another sip of the coffee and dropped her head again the arm. "Screw it, you're just going to have to explain it to me anyway."

She couldn't see him right now, because she refused to open her eyes as long as the lamp continued its assault, but she'd bet that his eyes were laughing at her, immensely pleased with himself. Unfortunately, she hadn't been exaggerating. Lex had kept up his end of the agreement, and given her all the pertinent research and results.

The _actual_ raw data results.

Which were nearly completely indecipherable to anyone who didn't have an advanced degree in biochemistry . . .

And damn if Lex didn't know that.

Bastard.

Except the bastard in question had just reached behind him and flicked off the offending lamp, which currently also made him her hero. God, she hated him so much when she started to like him.

And then he started to talk, rattling off the new meteor-rock concentration numbers, discussing how they fit with the current working hypothesis, where they created contradictions. Chloe just let herself go, visualizing his explanations, half-smiling when he used an analogy about his childhood dog's penchant for re-burying its treasures in a central location to explain the transport mechanism they were considering.

It had taken her two sessions of trying to wade through the results on her own before she finally faced the fact that she needed him to explain things because she could have all the questions she wanted on the Levitas, but it wouldn't do her any good if she didn't at least understand what she was looking at.

She hated that she had to rely on Lex to walk her through things, both because she was wary of the fact that he could probably subtly manipulate the direction of her questions from what he told her before she went on the serum and because it just irked her to have to admit the weakness.

But honestly, the worst thing was . . . Lex was a _really_ good teacher.

Sometimes she wondered if he'd missed his calling. That if his father hadn't been such a sick controlling bastard, Lex might have wound up a college professor or something equally disturbing and un-Luthorlike. He was obsessively thorough, almost inhumanly patient, and he could find a way to explain a concept that somehow made you look at it through new eyes. On top of everything she occasionally got the strangest feeling that not only was he good at it, but he enjoyed it. That for all his smugness and manipulation, for all that she was sure this gave him an advantage, there was a part of him that just enjoyed sharing his knowledge.

It was so odd. In her mind good teachers had always equaled good people. Lex was realigning her world-view.

She didn't like it.

Didn't like that there were times when she'd be so thrilled to finally get a concept she'd actually smile and mean it. Didn't like that Lex sometimes seemed just as pleased as she was. And she certainly didn't like that right now laying on this couch, in this darkened room, fighting a hangover, drinking Lex's coffee and listening to him explain their frustratingly minimal progress was frankly the most comfortable she'd been in the last twelve hours.

If she wasn't careful she could . . . fall . . . asl-

---

_She woke up groggy and disoriented. This wasn't her bed, and there were voices in the background. Rolling her head slightly to the side, she slit her eyes open and glanced over at the flickering light of the tv, which was now playing some infomercial for vacuum cleaners._

_Damn, she'd fallen asleep on the couch again._

_This was the third night this week she'd fallen asleep taking advantage of the hundred-plus cable channels in the safehouse. And that was exactly why she was on this couch. Because she was overindulging in the extravagance of premium cable._

_Not because she was waiting for him._

_There was no reason to wait for him. He'd never promised to come. It was probably safer if he didn't, and Lex had always been a pragmatist._

_So she was totally falling asleep on this couch because Shawshank Redemption was just too good a movie to pass up when it came on unedited. Plus she was beginning to identify with Tim Robbins' character._

_She forced her eyes open a little more, trying to locate the remote, and as she did she slowly became aware of the fact she wasn't alone._

_He was sitting in the arm chair, face in the shadows, eyes fixed on her and she had the strangest sensation he'd been that way for awhile._

_A dozen good quips about not sneaking up on people and him trying to get shot again and creepy stalker behavior flitted through her head, but instead all she did was whisper, "Hey."_

_"Hey." His voice was soft and achingly tired, like he hadn't slept in days, hadn't relaxed in weeks, and she hated the thought that he'd stayed up in that uncomfortable chair because she'd hogged the only place in the safehouse where he could stretch out._

_"You could have woken me."_

_"No."_

_It was just one word, could mean anything. No, I didn't want to. No you were too dead to the world. Or just one of those random monosyllabic responses people gave when other people made inanely obvious comments like she had. But it wasn't any of those things. Something about the way Lex said it, like it was an absolute truth, like he was holding onto to it like a lifeline, made it more._

_"Okay. Do you want the couch, now?"_

_"No. I'm fine here." Nothing tender or affectionate there, just rigid and needy. He'd been watching her sleep as an act of defiance, of power. He was standing sentinel, the one thing between her and his father._

_So she laid there for the rest of the night, and pretended to fall back asleep. Let him watch over her because it was the only way she could watch over him._

----

It was completely dark. Lex must have turned off the tv this time. Burrowing down further into the cushions of the sofa, she stretched out a little, sighing in satisfaction when her foot came into contact with a leg. "Told you that chair was uncomfortable."

Silence. Maybe he was asleep, that would be good. He never slept enough. Tentatively, she repositioned her foot against the side of his thigh so she wouldn't have to shift and whispered, "You never sleep. Never wake me up, and never sleep. You sleep, now."

Abruptly, a hand clamped down hard on her ankle. The rough contact was enough to jerk her out of memory and into reality with one sharp tug. She scrambled to a sitting position.

"Shit."


	7. Chapter 6B

A/N: I am taking a moment to talk about the science or more to the point the lack thereof in this fic. While I actually have an undergraduate degree in the sciences, I've pretty much forgotten all of it. I just know enough to really screw shit up. On top of that lets face it, we're talking about kryptonite. Realism this is not. So frankly I'm making stuff up. While I'll work to keep it logical and consistent, if you're picky about things like scientific accuracy . . . skim.

A/N2: To those of you who have felt moved enough by this fic to review. I thank you.

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**Chapter 6B**

----

Shit. She'd sat up way too fast and her head was pounding in retaliation. Pressing the heels of her hands against her temples, Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and tried to convince herself she had not said all the things she was pretty sure she had.

She felt incredibly stupid and vulnerable. She absolutely could not afford to be doing this. She hadn't really thought about that summer in such specific detail in years, and she'd never dreamed about it. She could not be doing it now, couldn't get the memory of a Lex who had probably never even existed mixed up with the cold hard reality of him.

Just at that moment, she became aware of Lex's hand still on her bare ankle. Snatching it back as though burned, she hissed as her left thigh started to cramp at the movement. "Shit."

"Stop moving. You're making it worse." Lex snapped as he got up off the couch.

She didn't know how he could move around in the near darkness, but she was so grateful he hadn't turned on the lights, it kept her from having to look at him, having to see the derision she just knew would be there. Maybe she hadn't really said what she thought she'd said. Maybe he didn't realize who she thought she'd been talking to, for all he knew Jimmy was an insomniac, or she used to fall asleep in Clark's barn.

"Here." He pressed two pills into her palm. "It's Tylenol." She wasn't really processing things very quickly and when she didn't immediately move to take them, he sighed in exasperation, added two more. "Christ. Mix them up and I'll take two."

Finally having it sink in that Lex was actually trying to take care of her, or at least keep her from throwing up on his couch, she tossed back three of the pills and reached out blindly for the water, by now realizing that his eyes must have adjusted to the darkness awhile ago. Sure enough, she heard the twist of a cap, and felt the cool glass of the bottle against her palm.

"Thanks," she muttered, sounding more resentful than grateful.

And she was resentful, bitterly so. She desperately needed him to go back into his original packing, all hermetically sealed and untouchable. Needed him to have sharp edges and blatantly selfish motives. More than anything she needed to remember that this Lex would never watch her sleep or stand sentinel against anything, because despite everything she might be doing to remind him she was a person, this Lex didn't care about her at all.

Which was hard when he was sitting next to her on the couch, gently massaging out the cramp in her left thigh following the same pattern as the physical therapist he'd hired.

"Stop touching me."

He didn't.

"I said-"

"I'm ignoring you. Stop being childish. Or are you actually going to throw a tantrum until I call Marta in on a Sunday morning?"

That got her to shut up. Partly because she couldn't stand the idea of being that needy and demanding to the one person on Lex's staff she actually liked, and because somehow the threat of calling in the physical therapist helped moved his touch back into the realm of the impersonal, a business transaction.

He was just doing this because she was of no use to him damaged.

God knows he'd told her that often enough these past few weeks.

"Lay back down." It wasn't a suggestion, wasn't a command, just a neutral instruction. The kind any doctor or masseur might issue. She followed it automatically, letting him stretch her left leg out and then bicycle it back to her chest, over and over until the assisted movement started to have the desired effect, loosening her muscle and lessening the pain.

It was a good thing the room was still dark because otherwise she might feel self-conscious about doing this in her short club skirt. But then it really didn't show much more than the little running shorts and sports bras she usually wore during tests as an alternative to dignity stripping hospital gowns, and this whole situation was so blatantly asexual maybe she wouldn't have felt self-conscious at all.

She was still glad she didn't have to test the theory.

Eventually she stopped worrying about it, just gave herself over to the fact that this was reducing the pain in her leg as the Tylenol helped to relieve her headache.

"Better?" he asked after awhile.

Chloe nodded, then remembering he might not be able to see her, said, "Yeah. Thanks."

She actually meant it this time.

Lex immediately released her leg, and got up off the couch. Oddly it left her feeling vaguely . . . abandoned.

_Not doing this, Chloe. You are not being this stupid._ She knew it was a weakness with her, that for all her seeming independence, for all her cynicism and ability to believe the worst in people, she needed them too much, forgave too easily. She'd proven that over and over with every friend, with Clark, with Lana and even Lois to some extent.

But not with Lex. She might need his money, his resources, but she didn't need _him_.

Sitting back up, slowly this time, she reached over and flicked on the lamp hoping the light would help to strip away the remnants of memory that were clouding her judgment.

It almost worked.

He was standing over by the desk, just outside the light, and the shadows that played across his features gave them edges, menace, all the things she'd come to expect, almost rely upon. But then he looked over, and for a moment seeing him watching her from the shadows like that was so reminiscent of her dream-memory, that she thought she saw a flicker of something long forgotten in his gaze, a possessive kind of protectiveness so familiar from that summer together.

It was gone just as fast as it registered, but it left her shaken all the same.

"We can revisit this later if you're not feeling up to it."

She couldn't tell whether he meant it as a challenge or a reprieve. But she knew how she had to take it, if for nothing else than her own sense of perspective. Shrugging indifferently she crossed her arms, looked back at him, and lied. "I'm fine, so unless you've got somewhere to be . . ."

"I think we've established my lunch plans will have to be rescheduled anyway," Lex replied with an ironic quirk of his lips. Still there was an acerbic note in his voice that gave her pause, and not for the first time Chloe found herself wondering if Lex was really as blind to Lana's growing reservations as he sometimes appeared to be.

She tried to imagine how Jimmy would react if she'd left him the same kind of voicemail Lana had, if he'd known she was out there somewhere suffering through a massive hangover. He'd want to come and take care of her, would feel rejected if he wasn't allowed.

Suddenly it all made a bizarre, horrible kind of sense. She was the surrogate! All of this strange, disconcerting attention Lex had been giving her was nothing more than frustrated care, displaced concern they both knew Lana wouldn't welcome.

It should have made her feel better, having everything back in its proper place. But it didn't. She felt used and secondary and pissed.

And down in some tiny, unacknowledged corner of her heart, she felt the tiniest twinge of sympathy. Maybe there was something inherently dishonest, slightly selfish, about living in a relationship when you knew the other person wasn't one hundred percent there, but it was a dishonesty she understood instinctively and painfully. Because she knew, with awful clarity, that she would be the same way, that if Clark had ever once been less than he was, had ever let his need for someone overwhelm his moral rigidity enough to use her for comfort or companionship, she would let him, would hold onto whatever pieces he gave her with all the grasping desperation and willful blindness Lex was exhibiting now.

They were both so emotionally needy and fucked-up, it was amazing they'd never . . .

Clamping down viciously on that stray thought, she reached for the thick file still lying on the coffee table. "Then we might as well do this now. Save me another trip into Metropolis."

Deliberately avoiding looking at him again, she flipped open the file and started to page through the data, trying to reconcile the raw numbers with what she remembered Lex telling her before she'd fallen asleep.

They'd been having a problem over the past few weeks with understanding the movement of kryptonite in her body. While there had been some debate about whether or not the 'infection' (for lack of a better word) would be diffused across her entire body or localized to a specific organ system or cell-type, all of the scientists had apparently expected it to at least be stable.

It was anything but.

The kryptonite moved. A lot. Like a restless hobo, it would spend a few days in her musculature, then hop on over to her bones, take a ride through her bloodstream and vacation in her lymphatic system. At first this had led Lex's scientific staff to suggest that maybe the trigger was whatever would cause the kryptonite to stay stable, that the electrical shocks might work in the same way electricity apparently worked in a laboratory setting causing cells to become permeable for purposes of transformation, and the development of an ability was nothing more than the random whim of where the kryptonite happened to be the most concentrated at the time.

But things weren't panning out that way. While the electrical pulses had definitely drawn it towards her leg upon application, it always seemed to take up its wandering ways after a few days grace.

So they'd taken a few steps back, tried to refocus on the basics . . . like how and why the kryptonite moved in the first place.

It had meant a welcome reprieve from the electrical shocks but more samples, more needles, and longer sessions of monitoring.

She sighed in frustration. "I feel like we're chasing shadows. I mean what if the concentrations never stabilize?"

"We think they do." Lex replied absently.

"Oh, well, if you think they do, then it must be so." It was the perfect cue for a snarky comeback, a sardonic observation, but Lex didn't say anything. Suddenly, there was a palpable tension in the room. Chloe's hand stilled on a line of data and she closed her eyes in sickening realization, gritted her teeth. "You don't think, do you?"

She counted the beats of silence, could practically hear him making the decision about whether to give her an answer at all. "No."

"You _know_, don't you?"

"Yes."

"How?" Her voice had gone harsh, choked on the word. "How do you know?"

"Chloe." The hard warning in his voice was all she needed to hear, confirmed everything in one sickening moment.

She swallowed hard against the disgust clawing away at her insides. She'd known this. Known he was experimenting on meteor freaks, and yet she'd consciously chosen to ignore it, relegated it to some separate corner of her mind as having nothing to do with her.

Lex's crimes. Lex's sins. Not hers.

But if she was benefiting from it? If that research was informing hers, if what she was doing with Lex was changing what he did in 33.1? Was she any better? Did she have any moral high-ground from which to judge?

"Get me the Levitas."

Another pause, another horrible extended moment of decision, then . . . "No."

She was up off the couch and across the room before she knew what she was doing. "I want my three questions. Don't tell me you're backing out of our deal. Get me the Levitas."

"No."

"I should have known."

Lex had risen as well shutting his computer as he did so in one fluid motion. "You're upset and irrational, and I'm not going to give you the means to intentionally destroy yourself over this."

"Oh please," she scoffed, "You're just worried about yourself."

"No. I'm not." His voice was low and matter of fact and almost sad. And she was vividly reminded of his threat when they began this. There were places he wouldn't let her tread, not without repercussions.

Violent, deadly repercussions.

Chloe backpedaled hard, almost tripping over the coffee table. Lex reached out to steady her, but she shook him off. "I can't do this. I- I'm not doing this, anymore."

He didn't make any move to stop her, just watched her as she gathered up her purse and jacket. But when she got to the door, he spoke.

"Two hundred and seventeen."

Not releasing the doorknob, she turned to stare at him. "What?"

"The number of violent, unexplained deaths in Smallville since the first meteor shower." Putting his hands in his pockets, Lex faced her, "It's murder rate is three times that of any other town its size. I bet it would take you two hands to count the number of attempts on your life by meteor-freaks. I know I've lost count."

"You're talking as though being a meteor-freak makes them less than human."

"Name one person with a potentially dangerous ability who's used it for good."

Chloe opened her mouth and then closed it. Lex smiled, resigned and unsurprised. "That's what I thought."

The thing was of course she could think of one person. One person who could make you believe there truly was good in this world, but then Lex had never gotten the chance to see that, not the way she had. As far as Lex knew nothing good had ever come from the sky.

"You're talking like its something predetermined. Human nature doesn't work that way. Just because a person has an ability doesn't mean they're going to turn into some dangerous psycho."

"Then why are you here?"

The knowing question stopped her short. Because Lex was right. She'd been driven by that exact fear, by the certainty that being turned-on, given an ability would drive her right over the edge the way she'd seen happen with countless others.

Unable to give herself or him any kind of answer, Chloe just shook her head and fled out into the daylight.

Didn't find a way to breath again until she got to her car.

Broke down the moment she slid behind the wheel.

Chloe didn't know how long she sat there, crying in punishing sobs that wracked her entire body until it ached. But when she finally calmed down enough to look up, it was to find Lex watching her from the doorway of the lab.

She jammed her key into the ignition, started her car, and went to pull out. Then her eyes fell on the dashboard clock and her hand stopped on the gear shift.

12:28 P.M.

Five and a half hours. At the most generous estimate the time she and Lex had spent talking and reviewing data and fighting had taken maybe three, three and half hours. Four if she was being self-delusional.

It still left an hour and half unaccounted.

An hour and a half Lex had let her sleep on that couch.

An hour and a half when he had had nothing to do but watch her, sit sentinel. Do all the things he wasn't supposed to do because he wasn't the Lex she remembered.

Except apparently, he was.

She felt like she didn't understand anything anymore.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: Short note today. Just continuing thanks for everyones support. Whether its something as simple as an 'enjoying this' or as wonderful as a paragraph with questions (which I will answer if you're registered or leave your email), I live for the feedback. Also, we have additional characters joining the fray today, I have done my best to get the voices right (including watching some episodes I'd rather not relive) so let me know if the sacrifice is worth it.

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**Chapter 7**

_You know that darkness you were talking about? I'm not sure we were born with it. I think people like my father find a way to bring it out._

-- Lex Luthor "Suspect"

----

"_You_ . . .are working too hard" Jimmy murmured playfully against her ear before placing a quick kiss on her cheek. "And your devoted slave of a boyfriend is pining away from the lack of attention."

Chloe spun in her desk chair and and quirked an eyebrow at him, just barely suppressing a smile. "Would this be my devoted slave of a boyfriend who's been on assignment for the past week or my devoted slave of a boyfriend who came back last night only to fall immediately asleep?"

"This would be the devoted slave of a boyfriend who has prepared an awesome movie date night for his lady."

Frowning thoughtfully, she pretended to doubt him. "Oh really? So you just whisk back into town, and expect me to drop everything? I'm not sure how devot-"

Jimmy stopped her with a finger on her lips. "Aaah, see this is the beauty of the full-scale inhouse movie date. It waits for you, soooo . . ." He spun her back to the computer. "You go back to being brilliant, and _very_ sexy. And when you are finished, we will be waiting."

"We?"

"Hepburn and Tracy and me . . . . and freshly made popcorn."

Kissing her once more on the shoulder, Jimmy went back over to the couch and made a big production of sitting back down and opening one of his photography magazines. Smiling, Chloe turned back to her laptop and typed in a few quick commands, saving the files she'd hidden just in time when she heard Jimmy come up behind her.

She'd spent the last four days essentially hiding out at Jimmy's apartment in the city, taking advantage of the fact her boyfriend was on assignment to gain privacy one just didn't have living with Lois in a small apartment over the town's busiest social hangout. It had worked out pretty well, Lois assumed she was spending her days in heady sexual bliss, Clark hadn't been around enough to notice the temporary change of address, and Jimmy had been too ecstatic about coming home to find her waiting for him to ask why she was.

Chloe wasn't about to tell him it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Lex Luthor.

She'd needed space, needed time to think about what she'd done and what she was going to do, and somehow she just couldn't bring herself to try to do that in Smallville. So she'd holed up in Jimmy's apartment and thought and worried and thought some more.

In the end she'd fallen back on what she knew, good old fashioned investigation.

For the past few days she'd revisited her 'wall of weird' combed through her records of every known or potential 'meteor-freak', and tried to trace what had happened to them. Were they still in Belle Reve? Traipsing around Smallville? Had they dropped off the face of the earth?

She didn't know what she'd been hoping for. Maybe some clear cut sign. Something that would make the decision for her. But there weren't any. The suspected clairvoyant who'd shown no inclination to do more than gamble was still a regular at the racetrack, and while there was no record of Jed McNally since the incident with the migrant workers, she couldn't find it in her heart to be upset about that.

There were others who were murkier—the teenage firestarter who had 'run away' after her parents perished in a conflagration which may or may not have been intentional; the plumber whose rich clients kept drowning in seemingly impossible scenarios until one day his business simply closed down shop; and the Metropolis University football player who had four girlfriends wind up in institutions suffering from paranoid delusions.

It wasn't right. Made her more than a little uncomfortable, made her think of dictators and police states, of internment camps and people who disappeared in the night. It was in fact the text book definition of wrong.

But she was having a harder time calling it evil than she would have liked.

Purposefully abandoning her moral dilemma for the night, she shut down her computer, and moved over to the couch and the waiting arms of her beautifully uncomplicated boyfriend. Sighing in contentment at the quiet domestic normalcy life with Jimmy always seemed to exude, she snuggled closer and tucked her legs up on the couch.

Jimmy touched her left thigh lightly. "How's your leg doing?"

"Better." She'd come up with a simple and fairly unverifiable story about a tumble from fence, while performing some legally dubious investigative reporting. It had served her pretty well to explain any pain or cramps so far. The needle marks on her arms were trickier, but cool temps and Jimmy's penchant for making love with the lights off had prevented any real questions up to this point.

Working to divert him from follow up, she teased, "So there was talk of fresh popcorn."

"Mmm," he pressed a kissed to her forehead and then got up, ignoring her little huff of protest when she lost her pillow, "We've got fresh popcorn and Milk Duds and extremely large sodas. Only the best for my girl."

Twisting to rest her chin on the back of the couch, she watched as Jimmy moved around his tiny galley kitchen microwaving popcorn and pouring sodas and generally hamming it up for her benefit. She smiled fondly at his antics. "I should bring you home with me. You've got skills."

"You know it." He flipped a box of Milk Duds behind his back for flourish, then returned to watching the popcorn in the microwave. "So what pulitzer prize-winning piece has you chained to your computer, now?"

Not wanting to make up a story she knew he'd continue to ask her about until he saw it in print, she went with her current default lie, "Actually, it was the invitation list for Lana's wedding. I'm helping tabulate the RSVPs. Yes. No. Steak. Chicken. Etc. etc. and so forth."

Jimmy scowled. "Don't they have people for that?"

They did. A very competent and slightly terrifying wedding coordinator, and of course, the ever efficient Rebecca, who was keeping Lex briefed on the guests' business interests. Chloe just shrugged. "Lana is trying to have as normal a wedding experience as possible."

"You know at some point she's going to have to wake up and face who she's marrying. Normal does not come with the solid platinum ball and chain."

"Jimmy!" It was a very convincing exclamation of indignation considering she'd had a lot of the same thoughts. Still, the comment did irk her. He'd made no secret of the fact he didn't like her involvement in Lana's wedding. She'd made no secret of the fact she didn't give a damn. It was one of the few points of contention in their relationship that didn't revolve around Clark Kent.

"Look, I know she's your friend, but any woman stupid enough to get herself mixed up with Lex Luthor . . ." he shook his head, "she pretty much deserves what she gets."

Swallowing hard, Chloe twisted back around on the couch away from him. Even though she knew they hadn't been directed towards her at all, Jimmy's comments had cut too close to the bone. "That's a horrible thing to say."

Coming back over, he set down the now heavily laden tray of movie snacks on the coffee table and sat next to her on the couch with a sigh. Putting both hands on her shoulders, he rubbed them apologetically. "I'm sorry. I just . . . I _hate_ that you have to see that guy, have to be around him and smile like everything's all right after what he's done."

She wanted to get off this topic, wanted to stop having to hear this unconscious litany of why her own actions had been so stupid. Jerking out of his grasp, she snapped, "I don't want to talk about this."

"Of course you don't," he sighed, and for a second she thought he'd actually let it go, but then as his hands closed despondently around empty air everything seemed to overwhelm him, force words to the surface that he'd obviously been keeping back for far too long. "You know sometimes I don't get you. Or Clark. Or any of you. I don't know whether its some kind of weird group Stockholm syndrome or what. But you guys just feed off each other. You spend half your time causing each other so much pain, it's like you think it's the norm. That it's the only way to interact."

"I don't- That's not- It's so much more complicated than that." But Jimmy on a role now, past hearing as he pounded away at the harsh realities of her life, hitting vulnerability after vulnerability, and she couldn't get the words out fast enough.

"Well, I don't see what can possibly be so complicated about standing up at the wedding of a man who is the world's best argument for why some animals eat their young."

Her hand connected with his cheek before she knew what was happening.

"Don't say that! Not after what his father-" she choked on her anger, "Don't you ever say that!"

For a moment, Jimmy just stared at her in shock, and then he was cupping her face in his hands, stroking away tears she didn't even realize she was crying. "Hey," he whispered softly tilting her face up so he could look at her, "Hey, what's going on here?"

Chloe just shook her head. She didn't know. Didn't know anything anymore. Emotions, thoughts, loyalties she'd believed long dead were bubbling up inside her just as real and raw as they'd been three years ago.

"You said something about Lex's dad?" Jimmy prompted softly, "What his dad did?"

It took her a moment to understand his confusion. While her 'death' had been public, Lex's had been private, swept under the rug to keep LuthorCorp stock from plummeting even further at the news of a debilitated interim CEO. It was so strange to realize that what had been a pivotal moment in her life was an unknown to this man who cared for her so much. And she realized, she could tell him this, for all the secrets she kept from him for Clark's sake. This was hers alone. So slowly, haltingly, she started to recount the events of a summer it seemed was destined to newly haunt her.

"You remember how a year after we met I testified at Lionel Luthor's trial . . ."

To his credit, Jimmy didn't say anything beyond the occasional one word prompt to keep her going, just held her and listened and kept his own counsel. And when the whole story was over, when he knew everything she was willing to share from how it had taken weeks for the burns on her back to heal, to how Lex had lain in the shards of his glass coffee table for ten minutes before the paramedics got to him, he didn't ask the obvious follow ups. Didn't try to get her to explain what had driven them apart or why she was going to Sunday dinner with the man who had tried to kill her. Just silently reached out and hit the play button on the remote, held her against him as they both pretended to watch 'Adam's Rib'.

Sometime halfway through the movie, she felt his hand reach out for hers, and she squeezed it in silent reassurance that said they were okay.

But she wasn't sure they were.

Because lying there in his embrace, she was realizing something. Jimmy was sweet and understanding and dependable. He adored her the way no one ever had, looked at her like she was Lauren Bacall and Rosalind Russell and both Hepburns all in one, would do anything to make her happy. By every measure he was perfect.

Except there was something missing. She didn't know whether Jimmy was everything she'd ever wanted and nothing she needed or the other way around.

All she knew was he wasn't everything.

But he was here when she needed to be held, and right now that was enough.

So she tucked her head against his shoulder, savored her reprieve from reality, and made a silent resolution to stop passing judgment on Lana.

-----

In the end her reprieve only lasted five days.

Lana had asked her a week ago to come with her to audition the strings quartets and wedding bands and she'd stupidly said yes.

Now she was trapped. If she pulled out, suddenly developed a story that required her attention she'd just be proving every insinuation Lex had made about her motives for getting involved.

So she wasn't even surprised to arrive at the rehearsal hall and learn that Lex's schedule had suddenly cleared. Having her plan for forced interaction turned on her like this had the exactly the kind of vindictive irony that appealed to him.

Halfway through the fourth string rendition of Pachelbel's Cannon, she decided irony officially sucked and excused herself to go to the bathroom.

Lex was waiting for her in the hall when she got out.

"I don't suppose you've suddenly taken ill and need to be whisked away from all this?"

The teasing question was so unexpected, so exactly in tune with her own desire to be anywhere but here, she almost laughed despite herself, had to bite it back just at the last minute. "You're the one who wanted to be here."

He sighed. "I thought she would have at least let the coordinator screen for the quartets that could play."

Chloe thought they had all sounded pretty good so far. Boring, yes, but good. But then neither she nor Lana really had his ear for music. "Your bride-to-be is very hands on. I'm surprised you don't know that."

Lex just raised a significant eyebrow that implied everything she didn't want to think about, and she could feel the flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck. Trying to appear unaffected and no doubt failing miserably, she crossed her arms and asked, "Should I even bother asking what you really want?"

Stepping closer just into the edges of her personal space, so she was crowded back against the wall, he gave her that half-smile that never reached his eyes. "I can't help thinking we've left things unresolved between us."

"No. Things are perfectly resolved. It's done. I'm done." She turned to head back to the rehearsal room, but he put out a hand to the wall, cutting off her escape route.

"Really?" He brushed the word against her ear, his voice low with something that was both intimate and mocking. "So you know everything now? Have all those answers you came to me for? Funny how that memo missed my desk."

"It's not worth it. Nothing is worth getting mixed up in your filth."

Lex looked down at her for so long that she started to squirm under the attention. Finally he murmured, "You didn't have a problem with my filth six weeks and a million dollars ago."

She turned her face away. "Temporary insanity brought on by shock."

That made him pull back. "And now you're back on the path of moral righteousness. Tell me, does world look prettier from that high road? All charming and safe and meteor infection free?"

It didn't. If anything it looked a lot scarier, more precarious, looked like that much further to fall. Whatever else she'd been doing these past six weeks, whatever horrible sins she'd involved herself in by association, Lex had given her something no one else had . . . the illusion of control. For the first time since learning she was a meteor-freak, she'd felt some kind of power over her life again, like it might not actually be up to some whim of fate.

The loss of that had been acute, left her feeling weak and adrift and hopeless.

Almost as though he knew what she was thinking, he leaned close again, hands braced on either side of her, everything in him persuasive, almost pleading. "Don't do this Chloe. Don't make yourself a martyr in some silent statement that no one will know about and won't change anything anyway."

At that moment everything in her wanted to say okay, just let go of the responsibility in the rationale he was offering her. Instead she said, "I'll know."

"I see." Lex stepped away from her now as if he were considering how this changed things. "And I suppose there's nothing I can do to persuade you?"

"Nothing." She tried to make her voice resolute, certain, but she had hesitated a fraction of a beat too long.

The flare in Lex's gaze told her he'd heard the opening.

Before either one of them could continue, Lana rounded the corner, "There you two are." She stopped and looked from one to the other and back again. "Is everything all right?"

Lex turned his full attention on his fiance. "Absolutely."

Chloe just managed a nod.

Lana gave them both a tentative smile. "Well, the next group's ready whenever you are."

Turning back to her, Lex gestured with his hand in a silent 'after you', but it was his eyes that were sending the more important message.

This conversation wasn't over.

----

On Sunday she returned to Smallville.

She hadn't wanted to. Honestly, she really wanted to stay with Jimmy, continue her exercise in avoidance of reality for just a little longer, but Clark was having a dinner for his mom's birthday, and she wasn't about to miss celebrating the day Martha Kent came into this world for anything.

Unfortunately, neither was Lionel Luthor.

Lionel in the Kent house was not a comfortable thing. There was something so incongruous, so visually jarring about his presence there. Chloe was never one to preach loyalty to a ghost, but sometimes she wondered if she was the only one who felt the utter wrongness of this, that inviting Lionel Luthor's presence on this land might be the ultimate betrayal of Jonathan Kent's memory more so than any relationship he was creating with the Kent family itself.

People were their own, belonged to no one, and she above all others understood that love for one person didn't prevent alliances with another.

But this land, this farm, _was_ Jonathan Kent, his blood and his sweat. He had loved it, fought for it, lived and died on it.

Letting Lionel in seemed like the equivalent of inviting the serpent into the Garden of Eden.

Or maybe she was being ungracious, overly judgmental. God knew she'd felt off all night, jumpy and unbalanced. Every time Martha Kent smiled at her she felt unworthy. Every time Lionel Luthor looked at her she felt exposed, like he could see his son on her. And when Clark had hugged her, part of her wondered what he'd think if he knew the truth of what she'd been doing. Would he be disappointed? Disgusted? Would he ever touch her again?

Which is how she'd wound up out on the porch, staring out at the stars and willing away the minutes until she could make a full blown escape.

"It is quite spectacular isn't it? You know I paid over ten million dollars for my penthouse, just because it was supposed to have the best view, and this porch puts it to shame." Chloe stiffened as Lionel came to stand beside her at the railing, continuing, "It's the stars, of course. You can't see them in Metropolis, too much ambient light."

"I suppose a city wide blackout is beyond even your pull."

"Yes, well," he let out a dry chuckle that sounded like tinder crackling, "we all have are limits. It's a shame though, I think its only by looking out on the sheer magnitude of the universe that some of us can appreciate how truly insignificant we are."

Swallowing, she forced herself to turn and face him dead on. "Don't tell me you're finally giving up on your Ceasar fantasies."

"Ceasar . . . I like that." He smiled unpleasantly, then leaned closer, "So tell me Ms. Sullivan, did that make you Cassius or Brutus? Were you the instigator or the well-meaning one in need of a push?"

"You know," Tapped her hand on the railing, she gave him a tight forced smile, "as fascinating as this history slash Shakespeare lesson is I think I need some fresh air."

She started to step away, but he put his hand over hers, tightened his thumb and forefinger around her wrist in a silent threat. "Please don't let my reference our unfortunate past end our conversation prematurely. There's still so much we have to discuss."

Chloe couldn't help the little shocked explosion of laughter, "Like what?"

"Like what you're doing with my son."

Oh God. Oh God. Her stomach bottomed out the way it does on a roller coaster when the world has dropped from under you and your body thinks it's in free fall. Struggling not to show it on her face, she laughed again, tried to make it sound incredulous and dismissive, but it just felt forced, brittle. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Come now Ms. Sullivan. You should know by now that there is very little going on in my son's life of which I am not fully informed. The servants tell me you've almost become a fixture at the Mansion these days."

Okay, she could do this. She could play innocent. She rolled her eyes. "I'm helping Lana plan her wedding. It requires about the same amount of preparation as the Allies' landing at Normandy."

He continued as though he hadn't heard her. "And then there's the private visits to Lex's offices at LuthorCorp. The phone calls at all hours. I have to say . . . playing second string to Ms. Lang, again?" He tsked in mock disappointment, "It just seems so beneath you."

For a moment he words just hung before her, the implications so insane and unreal that she couldn't process them, and then she did, and the realization of exactly what he was insinuating caused a disconcerting mixture of giddy relief and queasy dread to run through her body. He didn't know the truly important things, but he knew enough not to let go easily.

"Okay now I know Lex's mental problems are hereditary." She made her voice sharp, deriding, thought of how disgusted she'd been with Lex last Sunday and gave free reign to those emotions, trying to burying anything that might be considered remotely friendly. "And even if this wasn't some obvious delusion, my personal life is exactly that . . . _personal_. So go get your voyeuristic kicks somewhere else."

Wrenching her hand our of his grasp, she started back towards the house.

"I wonder if Clark would see it quite the same way."

The words were a choke collar, pulling her up short, robbing her of the air to respond.

Lionel came up behind her so close she could smell the Cabernet and rosemary from dinner, even the underlying base of cigar smoke and cognac. "You know its interesting you mentioned Normandy. In Europe during World War II towns did not look favorably upon a young woman who gave her favors to the enemy." His voice was razorblade smooth, so sharp you almost didn't feel the cut until you were bleeding out. "They'd drag her the center of town, strip her down, shave off her hair, and draw a swastika on her forehead. And then she'd be turned out without a friend in the world. A pariah to all."

"We're not at war." Even she didn't believe that. Clark might actually be the only one who did.

"Maybe, maybe not. But in the end its really about loyalties. About betrayal. You see you're wrong about this not being my business. I've promised Martha and young Mr. Kent that I will do _everything_ in my power to protect him. That includes making sure those close him don't feel their loyalties pulled in the wrong direction. After all Chloe, you have such lovely hair."

Something brushed her hair against the back of her neck so lightly it might have been his fingers or it might have been the wind or her own imagination. She flinched all the same.

Lionel chuckled, then stepped past her. "Oh, it looks like they're lighting the candles. Shall we go sing 'Happy Birthday'?"

----

She just barely made it through the rest of the evening. Spoke only when spoken to, stayed as far away from Lionel as possible, and begged off with a headache as soon as she got a chance, insisting to Lois that since she'd driven in directly from Metropolis, her cousin should stay as long as she wanted.

There was a way she should respond to this.

The truly smart thing would be to stop. To continue on the already preset course of ceasing all contact with Lex, and letting everything drop.

But she didn't like the idea of just letting this rest. It felt too dangerous to let Lionel continue his observations without responding in some way, without knowing exactly what he knew.

And she'd be damned if she let him think he'd successfully scared her away from doing anything. Even if it was something she wasn't doing in the first place.

So rather than taking the smart approach and going back to the Talon and to bed, she drove out of Smallville, took the back roads towards Edge City, where any tail car would stand out like a sore thumb.

When she was about forty miles out and as certain as she could be that he hadn't had her followed, she pulled over at the first gas station old enough and seedy enough to still have pay phones, fed scrounged change into the slot, and dialed an increasingly familiar number with trembling fingers.

She'd almost resigned herself to the fact he wouldn't answer the unknown number, when the phone clicked on. "Yes?"

She didn't waste time with pleasantries or preamble.

"We have a problem."

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	9. Chapter 8

A/N: As always, please let me know how I'm doing, because feedback makes everything better.

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**Chapter 8**

_All your life you've had a tendency to let the damsel lead you straight into the mouth of the dragon._

-- Lionel Luthor to Lex Luthor "Commencement"

----

"_We have a problem."_

There wasn't an immediate response, but something in the quality of Lex's silence told her she had his complete attention even if he wasn't giving her verbal reassurance of such. Taking a deep breath, she plunged forward. "Your father-"

He didn't let her get any further. "Stay by the phone you're calling from."

And the next thing she knew, she was listening to a dial tone. Staring blankly at the handset of the phone, she wondered where he was that he couldn't, or wouldn't, talk openly to her. Opening night at the Opera? Standing in the midst of one of his 33.1 facilities? Enjoying a domestic evening at home with Lana? Wherever it was, it was worlds away from this crappy little gas station on this nearly deserted road.

Sighing she put the phone back in its cradle, leaned back against the edge of the pay phone and waited, tried not to think about the fact that she didn't doubt he'd call. That even that tenuous implied promise made her feel better, steadier.

Sure enough, less than a minute had gone by before the pay phone rang. This time it was Lex who didn't waste time with preliminaries.

"Where are you?" The fact he was openly asking her for such information now when he wouldn't before, told her he must have taken some measures regarding security in the interim.

"On Route 43, about half-way between Smallville and Edge City."

"And you don't have a tail?"

"Not unless they're invisible. Which you know might be possible."

He let out a breath that could have been a laugh if you ignored the thread of strain. "Okay, take this down."

Three minutes later she was pulling back on Route 43, and heading towards a hotel room in Edge City, with the number for a different secure cell-phone clutched in her hand.

Wouldn't Lionel get a kick out of this if he knew?

----

Lex beat her to the hotel.

She didn't know whether he'd already been in Edge City or had broken every traffic law on the books getting there. All she knew was when she opened the door to find him standing in the middle of the room, staring back at her, the relief at seeing him there was a nearly physical thing.

Lex took a half-unconscious step forward as if he might embrace her, and for moment she desperately wanted him to.

He'd done it once before, the morning after he'd come to the safehouse for the first time. She'd woken on the couch to find him gone, stumbled to her feet in a near panic thinking she'd dreamed him that night, certain she was going crazy. And then she'd turned and he'd been there, reaching for her, touching her, pulling her close and telling her it hadn't been real. Never understanding that had been her fear.

Even now, after all this time, she could remember exactly what his touch had felt like, how different it had been from every other embrace in her life. Not the loving reassurance of her father, or the warm safety of Clark, not even the placid affection of Lana. Lex's touch was broken, wrong, like he'd received so little real comfort in his life he didn't know how to give it, was trying his best and knowing he was failing. She hadn't cared, had just held on for dear life, afraid he might disappear if she let go and at the end, just before he pulled away he'd finally gotten it right, let himself take as much as he was trying to give.

And for that instant it had been everything.

She wanted that now, wanted to be touched, to be held, to be gathered in someone's arms and told pretty lies about how everything would be all-right. Less than thirty-two hours since she'd renounced their partnership due to his transgressions, more than thirty-two months since he'd walked out on their friendship due to hers, and suddenly none of it mattered. She didn't care, felt like she was in free fall, blindly reaching out for anything to hold onto, even if it was him.

Or maybe especially if it was him. After all, Lionel was their shared demon, the thing that went bump in their night, and in the face of him, if nothing else, they were united.

But he didn't come any closer, just stood rooted, stalled, swept his eyes over her form as though trying to find the wounds his father had inflicted. Self-consciously she wrapped her arms around her torso, hugged herself in some kind of pathetic substitute.

"Are you okay?" he asked, voice hoarse with barely checked violence and something that might be mistaken for concern.

"I'm fine."

They both knew it was a lie.

He did touch her now, hands on her shoulders, as if by holding her at arms-length he could keep all the emotion there, too. "Chloe?"

The gesture was too familiar and too remote all at once, tugged at something weak and needy inside her. Shrugging him off, she moved to sit in the chair by the desk. "I said I'm fine."

Lex didn't argue just sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for her to speak.

Stalling for time, Chloe took in her surroundings. Edge City was town entirely devoid of personality, had neither Metropolis's chic glamor nor Smallville's quaint charm. The hotel room reflected that. It was terribly ordinary, clean and well-kept, with aging corporate décor. A room designed to cater to businessmen like her father, cheap shirt and tie-types, who traveled on a forty-five dollar per-diem, and didn't worry about much more than cable, an internet connection and a decent meal. Without going into the bathroom she knew the towels would be spotless but thin, bleached within an inch of their life, a small coffee-maker would be on the counter, and drugstore-brand shampoo in the shower.

And in the middle of all the underwhelming mundanity sat Lex watching her, looking incongruously expensive and powerful, even casually attired as he was in a soft gray sweater and black slacks. God, her world just got more surreal with every passing moment.

Trying not think about it, she smirked and commented, "Seems a little beneath you."

He just shrugged. "Best I could do on short notice. Considering what you said on the phone, I wanted to stay away from LuthorCorp properties."

And with that they were back to issue at hand. The thing she'd been trying not to give voice to, because when she did, it would be real, be inescapable and need to be dealt with. She turned her head away.

Lex was having none of it. "Chloe. What happened?"

"Your father knows about us."

Even though he must have been preparing for it since she called, for just a moment Lex went absolutely still, his face a mask. Then it was gone and he was back in control. "What _exactly_ does he know?"

"Not everything. At least I don't think so. He knows we've been in contact, and that we've been meeting, but he didn't mention the lab or my infection, so I don't think he's put it all together. Actually, he accused us of having a tawdry affair."

She didn't know what kind of reaction she been expecting, but it wasn't the one she got. The corner of Lex's mouth twitched irrepressibly, and she had the maddening sensation that he was holding back a laugh.

It infuriated her. It wasn't like she wanted him or wanted him to want her, but this was serious and did he have to find the idea of being physically attracted to her so laughable? Crossing her arms over her chest, she snapped, "It's not funny."

"No. It's not," Lex sobered, "But it is typical."

At her questioning look, he smiled. It was an awful smile, devoid of all his previous amusement, empty and darkly sardonic. "Infidelity is my father's vice, not mine. I saw what it did to my mother. Whatever my sins regarding women, I'm not unfaithful. But he's worked so hard to create a son in his image . . ."

He trailed off. But Chloe could fill in the blanks. In perhaps the ultimate act of narcissism Lionel couldn't see Lex as a person, only a warped reflection of himself, of what he'd molded him to be. And for the first time in a long time she hated Lionel Luthor not just on her own behalf, but Lex's as well. Hated that him for everything he'd done, and perhaps even more for what he was doing now, denouncing his son as the enemy, declaring himself to be outraged at his actions. Frankenstein unwilling to look on the monster he'd created.

And then there was the other part of what Lex had said. She didn't know why she believed his statement of faithfulness, but she did. The revelation was unexpected in almost every way, and yet from the moment he said it, she had no doubt about its truth. It fit so naturally with everything she knew about him, from his obsessive nature, to his desperate need for loyalty, for connection, for love. Just another piece for her to add to the puzzle of Lex Luthor.

It was a puzzle she wasn't sure she wanted to solve, but that didn't seem to stop her from trying.

For a moment they just looked at each other, something inexplicable passing between them, and then everything suddenly seemed too powerful, too overwhelmingly personal for both of them. Chloe glanced away, and Lex stood up.

"Well, in any case, my father's lack of imagination buys us some time."

"To do what?"

"That's what you're going to have to decide."

Chloe gaped at him.

Walking over, Lex leaned against the edge of the desk, and looked down at her. "Based on what you've told me, right now my father doesn't know anything I can't manage from my side."

"But Lana-"

He shook his head. "Let me worry about that." At her skeptical look, he sighed, looked past her at some distant point on the wall, and continued, "My relationship with Lana is of very little interest to my father, except as a means of controlling me. He can threaten me with revealing this to her, might even try it, but in the end I doubt he'll actually tell her. Information about a secret like this becomes a great deal less powerful once its out. Telling Lana would be like sacrificing a queen to take a pawn, you don't, not if you can help it."

"What could possibly be more valuable to him than controlling . . ." But her voice trailed off as a cold finger of dread walked up her spine and suddenly she saw it, laid out before her like the chess-game he'd been describing.

He gave voice to her understanding. "Controlling you. Or should I say controlling Clark through you."

Automatically she opened her mouth to protest, but Lex put a hand up to her lips. "I know this is the part where you tell me there's nothing about Clark Kent that would interest my father, but please spare me the insult of going through the motions of the lie. We both know I've stopped pretending to believe it, and I'd like to think we're beyond that."

Slowly, he removed his hand. Chloe swallowed. She was supposed to at least make a token effort now, was betraying Clark in her failure to do so, but she could feel the warmth of Lex's fingers on her lips like a brand, and the words wouldn't come.

He was still looking at her, watching her, and when she didn't speak, something in his eyes changed, something she couldn't quite read, but she had the strangest sensation her silence had meant something to him.

Before she had a chance to decipher exactly what, he was moving on. "My father thinks Clark is a 'remarkable young man,' a 'son any father would be proud of'" Again that awful, empty smile. "And suddenly he's a regular, welcome guest at the Kent farm. While I'm sure Martha Kent has her charms, I think its more than that. I think my father knows the secret Clark doesn't have. And I think none of you are quite sure what to do about that."

Chloe was relieved he didn't look to her for confirmation because she knew he'd find it. Instead he kept his gaze fixed on the starving artist painting over the bed, walked her through the rest of it, with cold clean precision. "We'll say for the sake of this that I'm right. My father isn't stupid. He knows he isn't trusted. That leaves him looking for an opening, a way in. And like it or not, we've just given him one."

Chloe shuddered, but let him continue. He was right. She had heard the triumph in Lionel's voice. He thought he had leverage, a way to make her dance, and maybe given enough time she could figure out what Lionel wanted, but Lex could already see it, was playing where his father was . . . ten moves ahead.

"It's almost perfect actually." Lex observed with something too close to appreciation for Chloe's taste. "Clark trusts you, and dear old dad thinks he can make you speak with his voice, at least for a little while. At first it will be little things, you won't be so quick to distrust, won't be so loud in your objections to an idea just because it comes from his mouth. And by the time push comes to shove and you tell him to go to hell, Clark's skepticism isn't what it once was. And the fact its my father coming to him with news of our association doesn't automatically make it a lie or a scheme. Might just be the action of a concerned ally."

"And if I just tell him to go to hell from the outset?"

"Then he plays that card early. Perhaps not as effective, but any association with the devil is still bound to make a dent." He looked back down at her, expression grim and almost apologetic. "Right now, there's no downside in this for him, Chloe."

She pressed her forehead tightly against the heels of her hands, but a solution wasn't coming. She needed more space to think. Standing up, she began to pace the length of the room, trying to think. "Okay," she turned to back to face Lex, "Okay, so I tell Clark first. Full disclosure. Cut Lionel off at the knees. He'll understand, right?"

Lex's expression told her exactly what he thought of that idea, but he just crossed his arms and sighed, "I don't think my limited experience with Clark's tolerance is the best gage by which to judge."

She scowled at him, "Well you don't know him like I do."

"Obviously."

"Okay, so thats it. I'll explain everything to him, and all this will be over." Her words didn't sound nearly as resolved and certain as she had hoped. And she realized that if she told Clark, that's exactly what would happen. Everything would be over. He'd be disappointed in her, hurt that she hadn't come to him, but he would understand, forgive her and take her back.

But he would only do it once.

She couldn't ever change her mind, couldn't go back to Lex for help no matter what happened, couldn't sin again. She'd go back to being Clark's go-to girl, and whatever the meteors made her, she'd just have to accept.

Hadn't she already made this decision? It shouldn't feel this hard.

"Chloe," Lex's voice was quiet, warning, "There's something else we need to consider."

"What?"

"My father may have put on a white hat, but he isn't above getting it dirty. He's still involved with certain aspects of LuthorCorp."

It took a moment for what he was getting at to sink in. Then it did and Chloe squeezed her eyes shut, angry at herself for not remembering—Lionel gloating to her at the Planet, the facility that had been emptied when Lex was trapped.

"33.1. Of course, your father knows about 33.1." Which meant if Lex was using her results to inform that research, there would at least be pieces there that could peak Lionel's interest.

Lex didn't confirm it, but he didn't deny it either. Maybe it was like he'd said. They were beyond going through the motions of lies they didn't believe. "I've done my best to keep you separate from everything else at LuthorCorp, separate servers, separate building and staff. But my father is getting his information from somewhere, and until I've tracked that down, I can't guarantee he's not going to put the pieces he legitimately has access to, together with whatever other information he's getting."

"And do what with it?"

"I don't know. Maybe nothing."

"You don't believe that."

"No. I don't."

"And if I asked you to destroy everything? So there'd be nothing for your father to find?"

He walked over to her. "Is that really what you want?"

"Of course its not what I want!" Chloe exploded. "I want it to be my choice. Not something I got forced into by you and your father's sick games."

"Chloe." He reached out for her, but she slapped his hands away.

"No! I am so tired of everyone trying to make me into their pawn, make me do what they want. You, your father, god, even Clark in a way. It's my life dammit! I want my life back."

She shoved at him again, but he caught her by the wrists, trapping her hands there against his chest. "So take it."

"What?"

"You heard me. You want your life back? Take it." Lex's voice was harsh, his hands biting hard into her flesh. "You walked into my office six weeks ago knowing _exactly_ what you wanted. Ready to do whatever you had to, to get it. And now you're just going to back off?" He shook his head, "You're stronger than that."

"Maybe I'm not."

"I have data from twelve very painful experiments that says otherwise." He released her now and stepped back, "Your choice, Chloe. What do you want?"

What did she want? So many things. She wanted Clark to look at her the way he looked at Lana. She wanted to stop caring that he didn't. Wanted to make her own choices without always having to worry about what Clark would think. Wanted to not go to bed every night worrying who she would be in the morning.

But right now, what she really wanted was Lionel Luthor's head on a stick.

Still . . .

She frowned up at him. "Why does what I want matter to you?"

"Maybe I don't want to stand by and watch my father get you back under his thumb." Lex shrugged, and half-turned away, putting his hands in his pockets. "Or maybe I'm just buying time, trying to get your trust so you'll come back to the table and renegotiate our deal. Does it make a difference?"

It did and it didn't. It was the difference between concern and calculation, but in the end Lex's motives were probably some strange amalgam of the two, with others she couldn't even fathom thrown in for good measure. She was never going to understand everything that made Lex do what he did, so really the question was, did that unknown change her mind?

No, it didn't.

"You know how you said there's no downside in this for your dad?" She put a hand out on his arm, turning him to face her. "I want to find one."

The corner of Lex's mouth curved up. "Then that's what we'll do."

"So how do we do that?"

"Well for starters . . . we're going to have a tawdry affair."

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	10. Chapter 9A

A/N: I was really trying to get the whole chapter written this weekend, but unfortunately my job hates me. So since I promised myself I would give you guys something, and I frankly could use the boost of someone not yelling at me, I give you the first half of Chapter 9.

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**Chapter 9A**

_I guess this is one of those rare times when we have to put our faith in the Luthor family dysfunction._

- Chloe Sullivan "Oracle"

----  
Chloe forced herself to keep her eyes fixed on the floor of the elevator as it made the swift climb up forty-three floors to Lex's Metropolis apartment. It was taking everything in her not to look up at the security camera she knew was fixed in the corner. But she was doing her best to look like a woman who didn't want to be noticed or recognized and somehow she thought flipping the camera the bird in the hopes Lionel Luthor might see it would interfere with that persona.

It was official. She sucked at being bait.

It was funny. All her life she had thrived on intrigue, on the adrenaline thrill of her own little games of 'I Spy', but now with the stakes upped to her own secrets and independence, it just didn't seem so fun anymore. It felt harrowing and oppressive. She was starting to get Clark's reticence, Lex's paranoia, could feel them infecting her like a disease she didn't know how to treat.

The sensation of being watched, observed like a fly under glass was with her all the time these days. Made worse by the fact she knew she wasn't imagining it. She and Lex were performers now, had cast themselves as the leads in a melodrama put on for an audience of one. And if the ruse was to work then she couldn't break character, no matter what. Couldn't confront the photographer she'd spotted standing across the street from the coffee shop where she normally took her break, couldn't lose the tail she knew was there when she drove home the other night, couldn't do anything that would make Lionel know a source had been burned.

Instead she had to wait and be watched and put on an Oscar-worthy performance of trying not to be followed when in fact that was exactly what she wanted.

The elevator doors slid open and Chloe stepped out. Grabbing the set of keys she kept on a separate fob, she unlocked the door to the apartment and walked in, flipping on a hall light as she did so. Lex wasn't here yet, which wasn't surprising, it was her turn to arrive first, to be the one waiting. Absently, she reached into her purse and pulled out the small secure cell-phone Lex had given her and checked to see if there were any text messages canceling. There weren't.

Sighing, she set the phone down on the table by her keys. This was her life now—two sets of keys, two cell phones, two worlds. She wondered how long she could live in both before she started to fracture.

So far she had managed two weeks. Two weeks of playing a role, of walking the tightrope of trying to give Lionel just enough that he'd keep digging, keep watching, keep throwing out lines of investigation that Lex could track back to sources. Because that was what this was all about, keeping Lionel's web of surveillance alive long enough for Lex to map it, to learn exactly what he had and where he'd gotten it from.

Keeping hold of her bag, she wandered into the kitchen, and started the coffee, then heading back through the main room, to the bedroom, she stepped out on what was supposed to be a private balcony obscured from view by some very tasteful greenery, but which she and Lex knew was capable of having nice clear pictures taken from one particular window in a building across the way.

It was one of the reasons Lex had chosen this apartment as the primary backdrop. They'd both agreed that the first thing they'd have to do was change their routine, look like they were trying to be more careful. So the phone calls to the Planet, to Lex's regular phone stopped. He made certain not to get her alone at the mansion and she didn't go to his offices at LuthorCorp. And above all else, they stayed the hell away from the lab.

Which meant they'd needed a new meeting place. Hotels had been debated and dismissed as too easy to track, too difficult to control. Properties Lex already owned passed over as potentially corrupted. Finally, Lex had just said he'd take care of it.

Two days later, she'd gotten a text with this address.

_Because nothing says tawdry like the mistress being kept in the apartment in the city, while the innocent wife stays in the suburbs._

Sometimes she wondered if it bothered Lex as much as it did her. Not that he was deceiving his fiance, she had no illusions that he kept entire facets of his life he kept from his bride to be, but the nature of this particular deception, that it left Lana looking the fool.

In the end, she usually decided he didn't. Lex was the master of compartmentalization, and she would bet that he viewed this thing they were doing as nothing more than a business transaction gone off track, a necessary means to a desired end. Nothing more to feel guilty about than anything else he did. Sometimes she thought she felt guilty enough for both of them, and sometimes she found she didn't feel anything at all.

Sitting down on one of the teak chairs, she pulled out a stack of articles for her "History of Media Communications" class and began to read, barely resisting the urge to wave at the photographer who was no doubt getting all of this.

About half way through her second article she felt him come up behind her.

Chloe didn't turn around, just kept reading, holding the pose. In her minds eye, she could almost see the tableaux he was creating—her in the chair, him leaning against the doorway watching. They'd given the photographer at least three or four of these, images that implied everything and confirmed nothing—Lex closing the curtains in the living room as she shrugged out of her suit coat, her hand resting briefly on the top of his chair as she passed by, his hand touching the small of her back as she stood by the doorway.

It was a little frightening how good they were at this, how easily they fell into this rhythm of working together, anticipating the other's moves. And maybe some of it could be attributed to their history, but in the past she had been following Lex's lead, trusting him to guide her, keep her safe. Now her trust was limited, and he took his cues from her as often as she did from him, but somehow the dance still felt effortless.

Lex came around, handing her a mug of the coffee she'd put on to brew before coming out. He'd shed his jacket and tie somewhere inside, undone a single button on his slate gray shirt. In other words he looked every bit like a man getting comfortable for a few stolen minutes with his mistress, provided you weren't looking at the cool indifference in his eyes.

With a practiced smile that it would probably take an expert in body language to tell was fake, he bent down to whisper in her ear, "You're spending too much time out here for someone worried about being watched."

Forcing an answering smile, she whispered back, "I'm courting disaster."

"Come court it inside."

The words were soft against her ear, equal parts suggestion and command, and Chloe fought a shudder as something passed through her that might have been revulsion or attraction or both.

As loathe as she was to admit it that happened sometimes now. It was as if this situation had caused her to tap into an undercurrent, an awareness that she hadn't felt in years. It was always momentary, a fleeting wave of vertigo, complete with the expected dizziness and accompanying nausea, but it never failed to leave her just a little bit shaken, uncertain of her footing.

It was happening now as he left her sitting on balcony, the heat of the coffee seeping against the skin of her hand, the warmth of his breath dissipating on the corner of her ear. For just a second, she felt her world spin, go topsy-turvy in a way that made her wonder how much unconscious truth there was to her proclamation that she was 'courting disaster'.

Closing her eyes against it, she took a few too quick swallows of the coffee, ignoring the pain as she burned her tongue.

Lex was right. She spent too much time out here for a woman who was supposedly paranoid about Big Brother watching. Even though she'd only been to the apartment four times, somehow she always found her way out onto the balcony. And she could tell herself it was a little bit of a 'fuck you' to Lionel, a refusal to live her life shadows, but that would probably sound more like truth if she hadn't already rearranged her world because of him.

But she didn't like to think about the truth, because the truth was . . . she loved this balcony, thought it was beautiful and peaceful in a way she had difficulty believing anything associated with Lex could be. Lex's world was purples and blues and crimsons spilling over glass and metal and leather, cool tones illuminating cooler surfaces until you needed a fire just to feel anything like warmth. But this balcony, this balcony was warm brick and untamed ivy on trellises and teak weathering in the sun.

She knew it was just because he'd kept the choices of the previous owners, liked the limited site-lines, and wasn't about to let a gardener in anyway. But it didn't change anything. She still loved it, cherished it as her own little oasis, the one good thing she'd been allowed in this debacle.

And somehow that felt a hundred times more wrong than any fleeting moment of attraction.

----

Lex shut down his computer as she walked into the main room.

That made Chloe pause. He had already pulled the curtains closed, so this wasn't for the benefit of the outside world, but usually once they had dispensed with the preliminaries, put on the good show, they relegated each other to little more than an occupant in the room. He worked and she worked. And neither one of them said much to the other.

It was, in short, the most chaste tawdry affair in the history of the world.

But now he was looking at her, with an intensity that she recognized, that sparked her curiosity even as it raised her defenses.

"What?"

Lex's mouthed curved in a satisfied smirk that she knew all too well. He had her complete attention now.

"You've got something." Not waiting for confirmation, she came around to sit on the arm of the couch and leaned forward in anticipation, "Show me."

Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out a manila envelope and opened it, began laying out photographs on the coffee table. "I believe you recognize the woman."

She did. That was her favorite shadow, the one who usually haunted her favorite downtown coffee shop and made her caffeine breaks less rejuvenating than they should be.

"Her name, one of them at least, is Anne Callahan. Former undercover narcotics officer, decorated for valor, investigated for corruption. She leaves the department on a stress-out before it goes anywhere. A year later, she shows up on the payroll of Daedalus Security as a consultant."

"Which is of course code for doer of the dirty work. And don't tell me, if you go through enough LuthorCorp holding companies, you eventually hit Daedalus?"

Lex shook his head. "Daedalus was actually a front for Morgan Edge. I think that's where my father first encountered Ms. Callahan's unique skills, but when Edge died and Daedalus was dismantled, Ms. Callahan disappeared for approximately six months. When she showed up again, she was Anita Cortez, the principal in house investigator for Cordry and Charles."

"Edge's old law firm."

"Now on retainer with the Ryan brothers."

Chloe nodded thoughtfully. She knew about the Ryan brothers. Bastard children of one of the smaller mid-western crime bosses. They had spent a decade scraping by as the muscle for other groups, until they had the good fortune to fall in with Edge just before he left behind one of the largest power vacuums Metropolis organized crime had seen in decades. The Ryans came in like a strike force, and before anyone knew what was happening they'd established themselves as the primary power to be reckoned with.

"Then two and a half weeks ago, LuthorCorp's agricultural division awards a three hundred thousand dollar rehab on one of our older plants to Ryan Brothers Mechanical Contractors. Its a rehab that shouldn't cost more than a hundred fifty thousand."

"And Anne Callahan starts frequenting my favorite java supplier. Let me guess whose signature is on the contract."

Lex smiled and dropped the contract on the table. Sure enough, there was Lionel's distinctive scrawl on the bottom.

Chloe felt her hand clench into a tight fist, fingernails digging hard into flesh. That bastard, sitting there in the Kent's house, offering Clark his help, his guidance, all while sending mob investigators after her and pronouncing her as the untrustworthy one.

"It's not enough."

Lex nodded in agreement. "No, its not. It tells us a few things we wanted to know. It looks like my father didn't start having you followed until after you'd stopped going to the lab, and we also know at least one of the money trails. I would wager that if we start looking at all LuthorCorp expenditures to Ryan front companies in the past month, and any corresponding payments by the Ryan brothers we can start tracking down his sources. But no its not enough."

"There's still no downside here."

He leaned back in his chair and sighed, "I suppose the association with mobsters is insufficient."

"Too easily explained away, and frankly . . ."

"I'm still the greater evil?" Lex observed dryly.

Chloe gave him a rueful smile and shrugged. Even though she knew she wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know, she still felt a twinge of guilt at having to be the messenger. "In the end, he's just using less than savory means to help protect Clark, isn't he?"

"So we look harder. Start trying to find a link to turn."

"Do I even want to know how you're going to do that?"

"Probably not."

"Didn't think so."

Returning her attention to the photographs, she moved a few of them around, trying to see if she recognized anyone else. Getting up, Lex grabbed her coffee mug and made his way to the kitchen.

"More sugar this time."

She didn't get a response. Didn't expect one. Lex didn't like it as sweet as she did.

Groaning, she rubbed the side of her neck and started using the date stamps to lay out the pictures chronologically. She didn't know what she might see that he hadn't, but the reality was she knew things about Clark that Lionel did and Lex didn't and that knowledge might give her insight.

She was on her third row, when her phone rang.

Chloe froze. Shit, she knew that ring. That was Clark's ring.

Lex appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. "Going to get that?"

Glaring daggers at him, she hissed, "Not one word."

Lex just smirked and took a sip of coffee.

Half turning away, she flipped open her phone. "Hey Clark."

"Hey! Chloe listen, I need you to do some research for me."

Glancing back over her shoulder at Lex, she said, "Yeah, you know I'm kind of busy right now."

"It'll just take a second. I think I've got a lead on one of the phantoms. But I need you to see if you can pinpoint the power surges."

"I'm um, actually not near a computer."

Coming over, Lex opened his laptop and turned it to face her. Chloe ignored the offer.

On the phone, Clark was still pleading his case, "Well, where are you? I can come get you."

"No! I-" she scrubbed at her face, and sighed, "Listen, give me thirty minutes and I'll meet you at the Planet." Then because she needed something to keep her dignity, she added, "Just make sure you bring an appropriately caffeinated bribe."

Lex rolled his eyes and walked away.

"Thanks, Chloe. You're the best." Then after a hesitant pause, he added, "I wouldn't ask this if it wasn't important. You know that right?"

The problem was it was always important with Clark. He lived his life at Defcon 1, and you just got swept up in the madness. But still, he sounded so sincere and troubled and grateful, that all Chloe could do was smile and say, "I know."

Clicking her phone off, she blew out a long breath and then started to gather up her things.

Reappearing in the doorway to the kitchen, Lex murmured, "You forgot to ask how high."

"Sorry?"

"When Clark told you to jump. You forgot to ask how high."

Clenching her jaw, she muttered, "He's my friend, and he needs me, so I'm there for him. It's what friends do."

"And I'm sure he's always there for you in all the ways you need."

Chloe inwardly flinched at his comment, "Clark and I-" Closing her eyes, she sighed, and then shook her head. "No. No I am not doing this with you. I am not discussing Clark."

"Of course you're not. The famous Kent code of silence, and you are, of course practically part of the family. Practically." He took another sip of coffee, which was now in a stainless steel travel mug. "Tell me how that works exactly. You have all the blind devotion of a Kent wife, and Clark has none of the responsibilities. Or am I misreading things and you're getting the perks, too?"

Scowling, Chloe walked over and snatched the mug out of his hand.

"You know I at least pay my staff."

"Buying friends and influencing monsters. The Lex Luthor guide to getting ahead."

To her irritation, Lex just chuckled and headed back into the main room. "So when can I expect you back this evening?"

Chloe turned to stare at him. "I'm sorry. Did you just pretend I'd actually want to see you more than once in a day?"

"You've only been here half an hour. I have a reputation to maintain. And we-" Lex reached into his briefcase, pulled out something she couldn't see, "We have unfinished business."

He set the object on the coffee table with a clink.

One singular vial of _Levitas_.

Lex looked up at her with a smirk. "So six?"

-----


	11. Chapter 9B

**Chapter 9B**

A/N: Sorry this took so long. I think you'll see why when you read it. I'm doing my general, you may dislike elements of this warning for non-Chlex interactions, but I'm hoping I now have enough cred that you all will trust me on its necessity. With that said, feel free to bitch and rail about characters in your feedback, I just like to know people are reading.

- + - + - + - + -

Not surprisingly, Clark was already there when she arrived at the Planet. He looked tired and isolated, sitting alone at her desk, waiting for her to come and give him a specific location so he could go deliberately put himself in harms way, and hold himself responsible for whatever destruction he couldn't stop. Atlas with the world on his shoulders.

It was in these moments that Chloe knew why she 'jumped', as Lex put it. Why she always put her life on hold when Clark called, always forgave him his inability to see her. In some ways Clark was her religion, her love an an act of faith, a conscious choice to believe in this one good thing without expectation of return. But at times like this, when he was a little broken, a little lost, when she saw flashes of the uncertain fourteen year-old he'd been, mixed with the unwavering hero he could become, Chloe just loved him because he was Clark, because he felt everything too deeply and tried to pretend he didn't. Because he asked for help with research when what he really needed was someone to lean on.

So she came when he called, and she researched what he needed, and she shored him up without his noticing, and silently, quietly she saved the world in her own way.

Sometimes she just wished _someone_ noticed.

Pushing that thought to the side, she walked over and rapped her knuckles on the edge of the desk. "Okay, the calvary's arrived. Let the alien ass-kicking commence."

Looking up, Clark gave her a rueful smile. "Sorry about this." He stood to make room for her at the desk. "I hope I didn't pull you away from anything too important."

"Would it have mattered?"

The words flew out of her mouth unbidden, little poisonous barbs put there by Lex's earlier commentary. Automatically she tried to temper them with a teasing smile, but the flicker of guilt that crossed Clark's face told her she hadn't been totally successful.

Sure enough, he defaulted to the defensive position, he usually took when he knew he was asking too much, but didn't know how to stop or apologize—fate of the world. It was an extremely effective position.

"You haven't seen the kind destruction these things can do, Chloe. Every minute might be critical," he pleaded, tossing photograph after horrific photograph on the desk, "I just- I unleashed these things. I need to stop them."

The images were something out of a nightmare, children's desiccated bodies, remains mangled beyond the point they were recognizable as human. The thought of Clark carrying these with him, of how often he must have taken them out in some horrible version of self-inflicted punishment made her stomach turn.

"Okay. Okay, stop! Clark-" she put out a hand on top of the photos trying to shield them both from their presence. "Where did you get these?"

He dropped his eyes. "Lionel's been having his contacts keep a look out for strange deaths around the globe."

"So Lionel's helping you track Phantoms? That's-"

"Risky, I know. But what choice do I have? These things could be anywhere, and we're already stretched to the limits. I've just been asking him to look for the deaths. I haven't told him anything else. But Lionel has resources we don't."

"Resources which are pretty close to Lex." Chloe pointed out, feeling like a hypocrite as she did. These days she was a resource that was close to Lex, and even worse, the moment she had seen those pictures a part of her had instinctively wanted to take them back to Lex, try to re-leverage her cooperation in exchange for his help. Anything to stop this.

Luckily her own private emotional conflict apparently remained private, because Clark had returned to his usual laser-like focus. "I know, which is why I need you to get me the final piece. Lionel's sources have these deaths localized mostly to the deep South—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida Now I've been over every inch of that area at least three times, but whatever this phantom is . . . its quiet about it. So I've been looking through the newspapers and public records and I think I've found a pattern. Wherever these bodies show up, a nearby community loses power within a few days of their approximate date of death."

He spread out newspaper articles and internet printouts in front of her. It was a lot of information, and Chloe grimaced at the thought of how long it had taken Clark to compile it. She felt horrible and a little hurt at being left out of the loop. "This must have taken you ages." She looked up at him, "Clark, why didn't you come to me earlier? I could have helped."

Clark suddenly found the papers in front of him very interesting. "You've been really busy. With the paper and school and Jimmy and," he sighed, "everything . . ."

Everything being Lana's wedding. The enormous pink elephant in their friendship. Though did it really count as a pink elephant if Clark alternated between avoiding it completely and wanting a minute-by-minute temperature check on the state of its health? But standing here, watching her friend shuffle and re-shuffle the papers, she could read the unspoken admission. He needed this project, needed something throw himself into and keep him busy.

She understood obsession as a form of emotional avoidance.

"Okay, so we're looking for anomalies in power grids?" she sat down in front of the computer and made a great show of cracking her knuckles, "This might take awhile." Taking a sip of her coffee, she flashed him a reassuring smile, "Lucky for you, I come out of the box fully caffeinated and ready to go."

Clark didn't smile back, instead he was looking at her mug in bewildered hurt. For a second she didn't understand his reaction, and then her eyes fell on the Talon cup he held in his hand—the one she had told him to bring her as payment.

Chloe bit the inside of her cheek. Damn Lex! He'd done that deliberately. Inserted himself into her interactions with Clark. And she'd let him, without evening thinking about it. Had just accepted it as a perfectly natural part of their interactions, never pausing to consider the incongruity of Lex making her coffee to take with her, the parody of domesticity it presented.

Though in her defense, he'd given her bigger things to think about.

----

_"So six?"_

_Chloe stared at the vial on the table, still an unnatural shimmering green, she hadn't set eyes on since storming out of the lab three weeks ago. "I told you I was done."_

_Lex just shook his head and walked towards her. "And I told you I'd keep my end of the bargain. By my count I still owe you three questions."_

_"You're three weeks late."_

_He had come over to where she was standing in the entryway, once again moving close, ignoring her personal space. For a moment he just stared down at her expression serious and unreadable. Then he casually reached around and unfastened the clip hold her hair back._

_"You were upset and irrational," he murmured._

_Chloe sucked in a startled breath and had to force herself not to jump back in surprise. "Wha-? What are you doing?"_

_Undeterred, Lex took a fractional step closer and started to run his fingers through her hair, tangling and untangling them in the strands. "Messing you up. It's been four minutes since Clark commanded your presence. Barely enough time to dress."_

_He said it quietly, matter-of-factly, with just the slightest hint of a bitter challenge. But despite the edge in his words, his touch was oddly mild._

_Then, capturing her gaze with his own, Lex moved a hand to the top button of her blouse. His fingers momentarily stilled in silent challenge. Briefly it flitted through her mind to pull away, but she didn't, just stood there silently, refusing him the satisfaction of either permission or protest. Acquiescence though the path of least decision._

_It was enough. Deftly, without further tease or preamble, he slipped the button free. Eyes never wavering from hers, his fingers found the next button, even as he picked up the earlier thread of their conversation. "I meant what I said before. I wasn't about to give you the means to hurt yourself when you were like that."_

_"And now you are?"_

_His fingers ghosted over her breast-bone in a way that might or might not have been deliberate as he moved to the third button. "Now you've calmed down."_

_She didn't feel calm. Even though his eyes never left hers, she felt exposed and vulnerable and absurdly aware of just how close he was. There were people out there who thought this was what happened behind these doors—Lex Luthor undressing her, disheveling her. This should have felt like some kind of twisted parody of that._

_But it didn't. Oh, it was strange and artificial. But it was them. They were strange and artificial. Puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit but had been forced together until they were stuck that way, unable to move apart. So this didn't feel like a parody at all._

_It felt disturbingly real._

_There were a million things she should do right now. Step away, set down her coffee and keys, and finish the task herself. Continue their conversation and keep her mind focused on the real issue at hand. Throw out some verbal dart that would get them snarking at each other._

_Hundreds of different choices, any one of which would be better than continuing to stand there looking up into his eyes and thinking that his hands were warmer than they should be for someone without a heart._

_She didn't do any of them._

_Lex finished with the top button, ran a hand through her hair one final time, ruffling the ends along her shoulder._

_"Am I now appropriately disheveled?"_

_"Very. Straighten up in the elevator."_

_"Yeah, cause I couldn't figure out that was what you were going for." Shrugging her bag more securely into place, she turned to go._

_"So six?"_

_Because she was still shaky and off balance from what had just not-happened, because the presumption in his voice annoyed the hell out of her, because the fact they both know she'd return pissed her off even more, and frankly just to prove to herself that she could, she responded, "Don't know. Depends on how long Clark needs me. You don't mind waiting, do you?"_

----

Unfortunately her victory had been short-lived, with Clark now staring at her coffee like it had personally insulted him, and her suddenly vividly aware of every inch of skin Lex had touched, places Clark had never gone, wondering if that had been the point.

No. No this had been the point. Lex wanted be on her mind, inserted into her consciousness as she worked with Clark. Like the split attention would be some kind of victory.

She wasn't about to let him get away with it.

Putting down the mug, she reached for Clark's offering. "Oh great, you brought a fresh cup! Now I don't have to make do with the stale stuff I'd grabbed from the quick-mart. Clark Kent saving the world from destruction and overworked reporters from day-old coffee."

That got her a smile again.

She just wished she hadn't had to sacrifice good coffee to get it.

Snagging a chair from a nearby desk, Clark sat down next to her and peered over her shoulder. "So how long are we in for? Do I need to make a dinner run?"

"You might. Unfortunately, some of us only operate at the speed of normal humans."

"Doesn't make you any less super."

Working to hide the blush that Clark's sincere admiration still had the power to bring to her cheeks, Chloe turned to the computer. "Flattery like that will get you everywhere. Congratulations Clark, you've got your very own side-kick for the evening."

"What about what I pulled you away from me? Is there anything I can do to help you with that?"

For moment she could feel Lex standing there between them, the way he'd looked at her, the touch of his hands in her hair, that alluring little vial of Levitas. She swallowed.

"It's nothing that won't keep."

- + - + - + - + - + -

"Okay, look here." She pointed to her computer screen. "These towns all started to have exponential increases in their power usage about two weeks prior to when you think the children died and then a spike that was probably what caused the outtage. Maybe this phantom actually feeds on the power supply, and so right before it kills, it takes a big hit, sort of like a shot of adrenaline. So if we start looking for unexplained power drains . . ."

Chloe trailed off as she realized Clark was actually looking past her computer to the door of the bullpen. Following his gaze, she felt her heart sink.

Lana was standing there frozen in the doorway, staring right back at Clark in a mixture of shock and pain.

Son-of-a-bitch.

What god had she pissed off to make her this popular?

Getting up from her desk, Chloe touched Clark lightly on the forearm in silent reassurance, and made her way over to Lana. "Hey! Didn't expect to see you here. Is there a last minute crisis? 'Cause, I'm kinda-"

"Busy," Lana completed the thought for her. "Sorry. You know what- This wasn't important. I should just- I should go."

Not waiting for her response, Lana turned to the stairs. Unable to stop herself, Chloe followed. "Hey, is everything all right? Did you need something?"

Sighing heavily, Lana turned back around to face her. "Actually, the funny thing is . . . I didn't. This was a completely excuse free visit," she said with a weak smile, and Chloe remembered how she had once commented that since dating Lex she felt like she needed an excuse to see her friends. Lana looked down at her hands. "I was just-" she swallowed, "Lex has been busy, and I was in the city for my last dress fitting, and I guess I've been a little bit at loose ends. But I thought I'd drop by and . . ." She shook her head as if at her own stupidity, "I'm sorry, I should have called."

Chloe just stared at Lana in mounting horror. Her friend visibly unraveling in front of her. She wondered if it had been the dress. If standing there on that platform alone, had just made everything very real. Whatever it was, all those flashes of uncertainty and doubt Lana shown over the past weeks, seemed to have suddenly overwhelmed her, until she was stuck in some emotional quagmire. Slowly drowning and unable to do anything to extricate herself.

Before she could say anything, Clark came out, shrugging on his jacket. "I'm going to take off. Thanks for your help, Chloe."

"You don't have to do that," Lana said, "I was just going."

But Clark was already shaking his head. "No its okay. I've already taken up way to much of Chloe's time, and I've got what I needed. You stay. I'll go. You look like you need a friend."

Not giving either of them any more time to protest, he brushed past them both and headed up the stairs.

Lana half-turned following him with her eyes, and just before he was out of sight, called out in thin desperation, "Do you think we'll ever be able to be in the same room again?"

Clark stopped, and shook his head. "I don't know."

And then he was gone.

Chloe just blinked in shock. "Well that was-"

"Excruciatingly painful." Lana completed for her as she sunk down on the steps.

"I was actually going to just go with awkward, but sure if you want to inject brutal honesty into this." She sat down on the step below Lana.

"It's like he can't even look at me. And then when he does . . . it's like he doesn't recognize me."

"Maybe he thinks he doesn't."

"Because of Lex." Lana didn't phrase it as a question.

Chloe just shrugged in confirmation. "Because of a lot of things. But you know Clark . . ."

"No, I don't." Lana managed with a bitter laugh, "And that's really the problem isn't it? Sometimes I think the only person in the world who knows Clark is you."

"Lana . . ."

"It's okay. I just, sometimes I wish I had been able to reach him like that. And I wonder how different things might have been."

"Lana-" God, she didn't want to ask this, shouldn't ask this. Stupidly, she asked it anyway. "Are you having second thoughts about the wedding?"

The brunette just stayed quiet for a long time, twisting her engagement ring this way and that. Finally she admitted, "I don't know."

Chloe had known this, had expected this answer. And a two months ago, she would have known exactly what to say, would have been looking for precisely this opening. But now, the words wouldn't come, stayed stuck in her throat.

This was crazy. Lana was her friend and Lex was just her . . .

Just her what?

She didn't have an answer for that. He shouldn't be her anything, and yet he was undeniably something. The unquantifiable variable in her life.

Thankfully, Lana continued on without further prompting. "I know what you're going to say. I can't marry Lex if I feel like this, if there's any part of me that still wants to be with Clark. But the thing is Chloe, I don't know if there's ever going to come a time when some small part of me doesn't want to be with Clark. And I don't want to live the rest of my life in stasis waiting for something to happen that may never come. I love Lex, and I think . . . that should be enough, right? I love him and he loves me. And that should be enough."

"But it's not?" Dammit why did she keep doing this to herself?

"Sometimes it is. I know you don't see it, but he can be surprisingly sweet. When he's there. But lately he's become . . ." she searched for the word, "distracted. There's something going on at work he won't talk about. Lex never talks about his work anymore, and it's making me wonder, if I've just traded one unknowable man for another."

When Chloe didn't say anything, Lana gave her a watery smile. "This is your cue, you know?"

"For what?"

The brunette shrugged. "Wise advice. A stern lecture. A sassy quip. You know the Chloe things that make everything better."

"Sorry, fresh out. But-" She shifted up onto the step Lana was sitting on and threw an arm around her. "I've got a full supply of hugs. Close out special."

Lana dropped her head onto Chloe's shoulder. "I just wish I had everything as together as you did."

Fighting back a bitter laugh at the thought of the absolute mess she'd managed to plunge her life into, she quipped, "Oh yeah, I'm a magazine ad." When Lana looked up at her in puzzlement, she sighed, "Trust me, all of us are a little screwed up right now. Some of us just don't know how to admit it."

"You know if you wanted to talk to me about it you could, right?"

She couldn't, but she nodded anyway. "I know. So hey get Lex's wine-cellar ready, because when I show up at the mansion all messed up. I'm gonna want more than hugs to ease my pain."

"You really are trying to bankrupt him aren't you?"

"I choose to view it as a public service."

- + - + - + - + -

Lana stayed for another fifteen minutes, but when she proposed going out for dinner, Chloe begged off, thinking of Lex waiting for her, of that intriguing little vial and what it might mean.

Then the moment Lana left she felt like shit, thought of everything Lana had said, about Lex's distance, about her own role in that fracture.

She didn't know what to do. Was she supposed to do what would be best for Clark, for Lana? Certainly not for Lex. And all that pointed to one thing, she should go back to that apartment, take him up on his offer, do what she could to drive that wedge a little further.

But it felt dishonest, manipulative, knowing what she knew, and not telling him. And as strange as it was to admit, what she did with Lex might be the only honest thing left in her life anymore. They lied and manipulated, but they did so face to face with full-disclosure. Like doing so was simply part of the rules of the game. There was a strange kind of trust in their belief that the other wouldn't break those rules.

And Lana wasn't part of the playing field, not like this.

So in the end she did the only thing she could accept.

Pulling out the cell Lex had given her, she sent him a single text message.

_Still tied up. Go home to Lana._

Lex's response was immediate.

_Tomorrow_

For a second her thumb stilled, then she typed

_10 am_

Why did she keep doing this to herself?

- + - + - + - + -


	12. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Because everyone asked so nicely and a month really did seem like an exorbitant amount of time to let this go. Mea culpa. As a warning, you may find parts of this chapter difficult to read. I found them difficult to write.

- + - + - + - + -

_Nobody ever said I was rational._

-- Chloe Sullivan "Rogue"

----

She stayed late at the Daily Planet trying to learn more about Clark's phantom. It was a fruitless search. Clark was right, whatever this phantom did, it was quiet about it, and about an hour in she knew her efforts wouldn't yield results. But she couldn't make herself stop, she kept seeing those kids, those bodies, families that would never be the same.

So it was well after ten when she finally forced herself to admit defeat and pushed away from her desk.

Her car keys felt heavy in her hand and the prospect of driving all the way home to Smallville and then back again tomorrow morning made everything inside her literally ache with exhaustion.

Which was how she wound up letting herself into Jimmy's apartment at eleven at night.

"It's me."

Jimmy padded out of the bedroom in a threadbare t-shirt and pajama bottoms, and gave her a sleepy smile that radiated pleasure at her presence. "Hey. Just let me tell the hot redhead to scram and I'm all yours."

Grinning, she gave him a disinterested shrug. "Nah, I just needed a place to crash. That couch looks comfortable." She waved her hand in mock dismissal. "Carry on with your sexual escapades."

Suiting the action to the words she started to head towards the couch, only to be stopped by Jimmy's arm slipping around her waist. Pulling her back against him, he nuzzled her neck

Unable to help herself, she laughed, "What happened to your hot redhead?"

"Told her to call a cab. Got a better offer." Jimmy hooked his fingers under the strap of her bag, and slid it down her arm in a slow tease. Dropping it next to the couch with a soft thud, he continued the lazy, entitled exploration of the line of her neck, the edge of her jaw. When he nipped her earlobe, she gave up all pretense of disinterest and spun in his arms.

She'd always liked Jimmy's kisses, liked their playful warmth, how they made her feel wanted and desirable. And tonight was no exception. God, she needed this. Needed him and the opportunity to just be . . . normal.

So she took it. After all, she deserved it didn't she? Everything she did, everything she went through, all that she gave Clark? Wasn't she entitled to just have this?

Slipping her hands around his waist and under his t-shirt, she deepened the kiss, enjoying his hum of pleasure. Jimmy responded by splaying his hand at her abdomen and toying with the buttons of her shirt. Not breaking the kiss, he began to undo them one by one, stroking her skin as he went.

When he struck a ticklish spot, she laughed against his mouth and murmured, "What do you think you're doing, mister?"

She felt Jimmy's smile as he slipped the last button free. "Messing you up."

Chloe's heart skittered to a stop.

Suddenly, the hands on her skin weren't reassuring, the mouth against hers wasn't loving, and she wasn't stopping, wasn't pulling away. She kissed him harder, pulled him closer.

And then it was Jimmy again. Sweet, loving, dependably safe Jimmy.

Who she didn't deserve at all.

She didn't know what she was doing, who she was, anymore. She was liar to her friends, a consort to her enemy, a reporter who sat on stories, a sidekick who went off on her own. A girlfriend who dreamed of being loved by another man, hallucinated being kissed by a third.

But for all that, she wasn't stopping, wasn't even slowing down. She could feel Lex in the room, smirking at her, gloating, and she was running from the specter of him, as hard and fast as possible.

Rucking up Jimmy's t-shirt, nails scraping his skin as she did so, she yanked it over his head and chucked it to the other side of the room. Stunned, Jimmy opened his mouth, but she was kissing him again before he got a word out. She didn't want to hear whatever he was going to say, because it would be gentle and caring. Things she couldn't handle right now.

Maneuvering them back over to the couch, she pushed him down, crawling on top of him and out of her skin.

She was kissing him and she was kissing someone else, hungry, frantic kisses with a brimstone vicious mouth that cursed as it caressed. Jimmy was trying to keep up, trying to stay with her, but he was drowning, swept away in the force of feelings that had nothing to do with him until he was barely there at all, a conduit, a receptacle for messy, frustrating, dangerous emotions that were getting too strong to ignore.

If she could just get rid of them, if Jimmy would just take them from her, just for a little while, she could get herself back.

She shrugged all the way out of her shirt, and moved her hands back to the clasp on her bra. But Jimmy's hand was already there, fingers blocking hers as he tore his mouth away from hers. She chased after him, but he wasn't having any of it.

"No," he whispered, voice soft, a little sad, as though he knew wherever she'd been a second ago hadn't included him. Bringing his hands down to where hers now rested tight-fisted on her thighs, he stroked the knuckles, the tight-clenched fingers, until she let him slip his fingers between hers. With a joke in his voice and a plea in his eyes, he murmured, "Slow down a little. I want to take my time with you."

Sitting up a straighter, he kissed her again, soft and slow.

Chloe bit back a sob. She didn't want to go slow, didn't want him to take his time. Above all things she didn't want Jimmy making love to her, not when she could still feel the echo of Lex's fingers on her skin, the ache of Clark's heartbreak in her chest.

But she couldn't tell him that, and her boyfriend loved her too much to just fuck her.

So she let him lead her to the bedroom, undress her with reverent care, and minister to her body with a tenderness that made her feel unworthy. And she went though all the right motions in return, telling herself as she did so that it didn't make her something worse than a whore.

But when it was over and Jimmy whispered, "I love you," just as he was drifting off to sleep, all she could do was stare up into the darkness and think, _You can't. You don't even know me._

Oh God she had to get out of here. She couldn't breath here, in this bed, was suffocating under all the lies, all the secrets. In sleep, Jimmy had flung an arm across her chest, and now it felt oppressive, constricting. She just needed to be free, needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Almost panicky now, she lifted Jimmy's arm and slipped free. Desperately gathering up her clothes, she dressed with uncaring haste, not even worrying about waking Jimmy, what she would say if she did.

She left him a note out of habit, barely aware of what it said, and fled out into the night.

By the time she realized she didn't have anywhere else to go, Chloe was already slipping her key into the lock of the apartment Lex had bought. It made sense she supposed, Smallville was still a drive she didn't want to make, and while she was more than willing to pull late hours at the Planet, sleeping there without a deadline was just too pathetic.

But that was a process of elimination she hadn't gone through. She'd wanted to be alone, wanted to be free of expectation and pretense. Wanted to breathe and escape. And she'd come here.

She was too drained to analyze the implications of that.

Setting her keys in their customary place on the table in the entryway, she headed towards the bedroom with single-minded purpose. Briefly, she touched the handle of the French-doors that led out to the balcony. It would be peaceful out there, quiet, just her and the ivy and stars.

Chloe turned away from the doors and made her way over to the bed. Out there she would be alone with her thoughts, and she didn't want to think. Didn't want to relive about what had happened, or examine her apparent emotional dysfunction. All she wanted to do was enjoy the feeling of freedom and sleep.

Undressing down to her briefs, she set the alarm on her cell for seven a.m., and slipping for the first time between the sheets of a bed with which she was supposedly all too familiar, she finally, silently cried herself to sleep.

----

"Good morning sunshine."

Barely lifting her head from the pillow, Chloe slit her eyes open against the morning sun, to find Lex leaning the doorway of the bedroom, a strange expression on his face.

Slowly several extremely important details came to her at once. First, there was too much sun peeking through the blinds for it to be seven in the morning, so her cellphone had failed to go off for whatever reason. Second, Lex had blessedly put on a pot of coffee before waking her. And third and most important, the sheets had ridden down her back in the middle of the night exposing her and exactly what she wasn't wearing to his view.

Lex, for his part, wasn't being shy about the opportunity. And she could feel his eyes sweep down the line of her spine.

Her first instinct was to stop him by sitting up, but clutching sheets to her breast in indignation was a little too damsel in distress, so she didn't move, just turned her head away and let him keep looking. If her time with Lex had taught her anything, being disaffected was a kind of power. People found it disconcerting when you didn't find them important enough to react.

Unfortunately Lex was apparently all too familiar with the technique, and he continued his unhurried study of her back. It was different from that time in his office, when she'd first come to him. There'd been something cruelly sexual, blatantly demeaning in that cold deconstruction of her body. But this had a strangely chaste kind of sexuality to it, appreciation absent desire. Absurdly, she found herself wondering if he thought she was pretty.

At that stray thought, she twisted her head back around to scowl at him. "Aren't you here early?"

"I could ask you the same question," he retorted with an edge to his voice that she didn't quite understand.

"I wound up spending the night."

"I can see that." Lex murmured coming to stand next to the bed, "If you had told me, we could have done this earlier. Save me the drive."

As the memory of what had driven her here rose fresh in her mind, Chloe closed her eyes against the sudden onslaught of tears and swallowed down the ache in her throat. "It wasn't exactly planned."

She waited for the biting commentary, the probing inquiry, but in didn't come. Instead there was just a long moment of silence. Then to her surprise, Lex brushed his fingertips lightly over a spot at the base of her spine. "You still have the scars."

It was such a non-sequitur that it took her a minute to realize what he was talking about—the burns and shrapnel marks his father had given her the last time she'd tried to play with the big boys. Lex hadn't seen them since that summer, an accident of reaching for the top shelf in too short shirt. He'd never said anything about it, but she'd seen it in his eyes, in the guilt, the quiet rage that lay there when she'd turned back around. They'd faded now, so much so that Jimmy had never noticed them. Little more than faint discolorations, barely remembered wounds. But apparently Lex remembered.

Not opening her eyes, uncertain of what she'd see, what she wanted to see, if she did, Chloe just buried her face deeper into the pillow. "Don't you have yours?"

"No."

She opened one eye at that. "Healing?"

The corner of Lex's mouth twitched, "I'm a miracle of science."

"Almost like it never happened," she observed.

"Almost."

But it had happened, and sometimes it felt like they were the only two people in the world who remembered. And sometimes it felt like even they'd forgotten.

Lex moved away from the bed. "You should get dressed. We've got work to do."

Unable to help herself, she called after him, "Does it ever bother you?"

He paused in the doorway and looked back at her.

"What happened, that after everything we wound up here," she clarified. Wrapping the sheet around her body, she sat up and met his eyes, "Does it ever bother you?"

"I rarely find regret to be worth my time."

"Those who don't understand history--"

"Are doomed to repeat it," he completed for her. "Is that what this is about? You think we're doomed to repeat our past mistakes?"

"I guess not," she sighed, "Its not like we're friends this time round."

Lex didn't say anything.

"I just- What did happen that summer?"

"Funny I remember you being there."

She had been there, and it had been awful. The way he'd looked at her, the anger and betrayal and . . . she blinked in realization as the memory came back to her . . . and, yes, _fear_ in his eyes. Lex had been afraid. Had it been for her? Of her? What she would think? She felt a little dizzy at the idea. "I never understood why you shut me out. You had to know . . ."

She didn't finish the sentence but she didn't need to, it was there in Lex's eyes. He'd known, known she would have followed him, done anything for him. He'd been her world in those months, and it was frightening now to think of how easily he could have kept her.

Lex seemed to be choosing his words. "You were barely eighteen. There were things you didn't need to be involved in."

"You involved Lana," she pointed out.

"In my defense, Lana involved herself."

He turned away from her again in dismissal, but for some reason, she couldn't seem to shut up, to let it go. And before she could think better of it, she asked, "Is that when you fell in love with her?"

Lex went utterly still, keeping his back to her, he asked, "Is there a point to this delightful trip down memory lane?"

There really wasn't. It was just for a second, they'd felt like the people they'd been two summers and a lifetime ago. People who'd talked about real things, and didn't constantly circle each other like predators looking for a weak spot, and she was apparently to stupid to recognize how utterly fake it had been. She shrugged, and tried to add a note challenge to her voice, "I didn't think your feelings for your bride-to-be would be such a touchy subject."

He turned back to face her, face now a frozen mask. "They're not, but they're also not for public display, for you to judge and weigh and determine if their sufficiently worthy. I'm done seeking the approval of Smallville's self-appointed moral protectorate. Lana knows how I feel about her, and she's the only one that matters. I don't have to prove myself to Clark or to you."

Chloe stared at him in open-mouthed shock, unable to find words. That hadn't been the impetus behind her question at all. She'd just been thinking about Lana's visit last night, about she'd said, and everything she'd left unsaid, and she'd wanted to know, to understand a little bit more of their story. To what end she didn't know. But so much of Lex and Lana's relationship had seemed to come out of left field, something they'd built from experiences Chloe knew nothing about, that Lana still wouldn't talk about, and if she could just grasp a piece . . .

She had absolutely no idea what she'd do with it.

Sighing, she drew her knees up close and rubbed at her eyes, grimacing a little at the gritty feeling of sleep and smudged mascara. God she must be sight right now. "You know what? I don't care. Forget I asked."

"Is there anything else you need to ask me while nude, or can we continue this conversation with clothes? I'd recommend the clothes, you seem to think more clearly with them on."

Scowling, she muttered, "Clothes will be fine."

"Then I'll leave you to get dressed, unless you'd like to continue to interrogate me while you change?"

"Thanks, I'll pass."

"Pity."

And with that parting shot, he turned on his heel and walked out to the other room.

----

Chloe took her time showering and scrubbing every inch of her skin clean, trying to erase all remnants of last night and this morning. So by the time she made her way into the living room, her skin was flushed from the heat of the shower, and her fingertips had started to prune. All in all, not one of her more attractive looks.

Lex barely seemed to notice, but then she supposed anything was an improvement over the blotchy skin and mascara-dirty eyes that had faced her when she'd looked in this mirror this morning.

He'd already set out the Levitas in the middle of the table, gleaming up at her like some serpent's apple. Pure temptation and degradation. But even more intriguing was the thick stack of folders he'd set beside him. Too many and too thick to just be more of her test results.

She took a seat on the sofa and looked over at him. "So you never did tell me what's going on here."

"I would think that would be obvious."

"Enlighten me."

"You walked out on our deal, Chloe. I'm now reopening negotiations."

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	13. Chapter 11A

**A/N:** For those of you who are wondering about the lenght of time between updates. I am in the midst of a series of fairly major life changes, which are taking up an amazing amount of time. Okay there's my mea culpa. Onward. I teased a potential "game change," it is in this chapter, but not this half, but I wanted to keep giving you guys something in the midst of my crazy life, so stay with me and I promise its coming.

- + - + - + - + -  
**Chapter 11A**

_Real life is not a comic book. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty, make compromises._

-- Lex Luthor "Ryan"

-----

"_I'm now reopening negotiations."_

The words knocked her back against the couch and for a moment Chloe just sat there, speechless with shock. Nine weeks working together, with each other, against each other, and Lex still knew just how to surprise the hell out of her.

She hadn't seen this coming. He'd even given her fair warning, stood in the middle of that hotel room and told her this was his end game. And still she hadn't been prepared for this at all.

Thinking about what he'd said then, she murmured, "You don't have my trust yet, you know."

"I know."

The matter-of-fact acceptance in his voice made her look over. "So what moved up your timeline for manipulation?"

"You did."

"Am I supposed to be flattered?"

"You're supposed to be intrigued," he said with a smile as he slid a thick file over to her.

Swallowing, she put her hand out to touch the file, _her_ file, didn't open it, just rested her hand there, keeping it on the outside away from danger, from temptation. She knew what she would find if she opened it, if she looked—progress, possibilities, questions to be asked that she couldn't let herself want to answer.

She pushed the file away with a shake of her head. "No. I told you I was done."

"You haven't heard the offer yet."

"It doesn't matter."

"In my experience, the offer always matters."

Chloe grimaced, because that's exactly what she was afraid of, that the offer would matter, that she had a price and Lex knew what it was. The folder still sat there, like a siren with its new answers, and newer questions, and she found herself speaking just in an effort to drown out its call. "This isn't about a negotiation Lex. It's not about better options or more leverage. It's about what's right. About lines that shouldn't be crossed, and no amount of money or incentive is going to move them for you."

"You know, it's been awhile since I've had a sermon from the Kent pulpit." Lex frowned thoughtfully and stood, making his way over to the window. "Does Clark make you practice all that self-righteousness out there on the farm?"

"This isn't about Clark."

"Of course it is." He turned and pinned her to the couch with his gaze, "It's about being able to look Clark Kent in the eye and yourself in the mirror. It's about doing the comfortable thing. Not the right one."

"You think this is comfortable?!" Chloe lept to her feet, practically choking on her anger. "You think waiting around, wondering if today is the day you wake up a freak is the fucking easy path?"

Lex braced his hands on the back of the chair and stared her down. "I think you've found moral certainty in inaction. And it's easier than doing something and finding out it was wrong. If somebody else is doing it, if it just happens to you, then you can't be blamed, can you?"

"I-" she swallowed hard, trying to find words, a compelling rejoinder, but none were coming, felt like they might never come. It was like she'd lost a part of herself in Jimmy's bed last night, gotten stripped of her best sides and good intentions, so all she had left was a small, twisted, vulnerable version of herself that she didn't like and didn't trust.

Debating with Lex when she was like this was beyond inadvisable, it was dangerous. She sighed and pushed past him, "I need coffee."

Lex followed her into the kitchen.

Ignoring him, she focused on preparing the coffee, trying find herself in the little ritual of it. It would have been better if she could have done the brewing, but Lex had already taken care of that for her. So she made do with pouring, and stirring, adding sugar and finding cream.

Keeping her back to him, she took a sip and then another, just letting herself savor the taste, escape into the moment.

Coming over, Lex leaned back against the counter beside her and crossed his arms and still didn't say one fucking word. The silence was worse than anything.

Suddenly the mug felt too heavy in her hands. She set it down on the counter. "I can't do this right now."

"You mean you won't."

"No, I _can't_." She braced her hands against the counter-top for support and dropped her head, "I'm tired Lex. I'm not like you. I don't know how to have my guard up twenty-four seven." Swallowing hard, she continued, "So congratulations, you caught me at a vulnerable moment. But that doesn't mean I have to play hurt."

It was so stupid, telling him this, offering up her weakness on a silver platter, but she couldn't keep it all up right now. There were too many people who needed her to be strong for them, and hadn't left her with anything for herself.

Lex was quiet for a long uncomfortable moment, and then, still looking at the wall, asked, "Do they know?"

"I'm not up for cryptic. Does who know what?"

"Do they know how much they take from you? What it costs you to shore them all up?"

"No," she pushed away from the counter with a hard shove, eyes flashing, "No, I'm not doing this. Not with you."

"I don't see why not." Lex picked up her abandoned mug and took a sip. "It's not as though anyone else is applying for the job."

"And you are?" she scoffed, "Please. We both know you have anything but my best interests at heart."

"Well that makes two of us, doesn't it?"

The cool observation was like a slap across the face. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know exactly what it means. When was the last time you did something you wanted, just because you wanted it, because it mattered to you?"

Chloe swallowed as she thought of last night, how close she'd come to taking what she needed from Jimmy, how much she hated herself for it, how much she hated Lex for it. "Just because I'm not a sociopath--"

"Being pathologically selfless doesn't make you any less sick."

For a moment they just stood there glaring at each other, the air between crackling with animosity and thick with things they shouldn't have said but wouldn't take back. Then Lex turned to refresh the coffee, and she slumped down in the pub chair beside the island—fighters going to their respective corners at the end of a round.

Bending forward, she scrubbed at her eyes, running her hands up into her hair and tightening her grip on the roots until it was almost painful. "You can be _such_ a bastard."

Coming around the island to sit in the chair beside her, Lex set the fresh cup in front of her. "That would imply there are times when I'm not."

Sitting back up she sighed, "I amend the statement."

Lex huffed a laugh, and nudged the mug towards her. He'd prepared the coffee to her specifications for once, and she wondered if he meant it as some bizarre peace offering. For awhile they just sat there, in nearly deafening silence, and then slowly inexplicably the silence became quieter, less strained. Nothing forgotten or forgiven, just . . . integrated, a new part of their fabric.

Circling his finger in the ring left on the granite counter-top by the coffee mug, Lex said, "We used to be better at this."

They had been. Had stayed up all hours in the kitchen of the safe-house debating history and moral hypotheticals. She'd been addicted to the intellectual stimulation, had found it so flattering that Lex would even bother to argue with her, that it wasn't until months later, when the emotional fog surrounding everything to do with him had cleared, that she'd been able to see the darker shades. To think back on that time—on Lex playing devil's advocate so well, you stopped being certain that it was really the wrong side, that he was really playing—and see the warning.

"It used to be hypothetical," she whispered.

They lapsed back into silence.

"Are you going to tell me why you wound up here last night?"

Involuntarily she looked up in shock and then back down at her now empty coffee cup. Resolutely she set it on the counter. "Are you going to tell me why it bothers you that I did?"

Lex slanted her an unpleasant look. "I don't like being handled."

She snorted involuntarily at the idea—Chloe Sullivan handling Lex Luthor—only to have her laughter die abruptly in realization. "Dear God, you're serious."

"Deadly." The word was an ice-cold slip slide down her spine, and she swallowed.

"Well, it didn't have anything to do with you," she lied, "so you can keep your pride."

"Now why do I find that hard to believe?"

"Because you're an egomaniacal sonofabitch?"

"Or maybe because you canceled our appointment last night, only after Lana came and visited you at the Planet."

"How did you-?" She started to ask if he was having her followed, but then realized that of course he was. That was the entire fucking point of this damn charade they'd been engaging in for the past two weeks, to follow her and figure out who else was. Still, there was something not quite right about that, if Lex had gotten this from whoever was tailing her, he'd had have known about Jimmy, wouldn't have been surprised to find her here. She groaned. "Does Lana know you have her followed?"

"Its called security."

"Security," she shook her head in disbelief, "Christ, you become more like your father everyday, don't you?"

"Haven't you heard? My father is a paragon of virtue."

"No one changes that much." And then sitting there, with those words floating in her head, the germ of a horrible idea came to her, took root and began to grow, like creeping ivy, insidious and strangling. Quietly, she breathed, "You're becoming your father."

"We've covered that."

"No." She reached for him excitedly, tugged lightly at the cuff of his shirt, "Don't you see? What you're doing with, Lana? It's learned. I bet he had your mother tailed everywhere she went."

He stood and took the coffee mug over to the sink. "I fail to see the point of this."

"Lex-" Kneeling up on the pub-chair, she leaned across the counter and said significantly, "nobody changes that much."

She had his attention now. "You think he's having Martha Kent followed."

"And I don't think Clark would like it, do you?"

"No," Lex's mouth quirked in a cold smile, "I don't think Clark would like it at all."

Chloe felt an answering smile creep over her face, "There's no question about Martha's loyalty. Hard to spin that as concern."

"He'll spin it as security."

He was right. Lionel could spin following Martha as security, but if he went further . . . "Hard to spin a phone tap. An email trace."

Lex shook his head. "I wouldn't get your hopes up. I don't think he ever went that far with my mother."

She bit her lip, trying to decide if she wanted to complete the thought, trace the idea the length it had gone in her mind. There were other ways out of this. Honorable ways, honest ways.

But far far less satisfying ones.

"Maybe not, but how hard do you think it would be to make Clark believe he did?"

"Disappointingly easy."

And just like that they were conspirators again, plotting the downfall of a common enemy. She couldn't wait to see Lionel's face, when he realized he'd been out-maneuvered by the two of them again. There was even a part of her that half-hoped he hadn't followed Martha at all, wanted the satisfaction of watching him come to understand that she'd played his game better and won.

"Are you sure about this Chloe?"

"I'm sure." She nodded without hesitation, and then smiled, "After all, weren't you telling me it was time I did something just because I wanted to?"

- + - + - + - + -


	14. Chapter 11B

**A/N:** I am so sorry for the length of these chapters, and maybe I should just delay posting. But I keep trying to give you guys progress in the midst of the craziness of my life. There will actually be a third part to Chapter 11. I'm sorry I'm having trouble getting it all done at once.

- + - + - + - + -

**Chapter 11B**

They spent the better part of the morning hammering out the details of the plan. Everything from how long it would take to manufacture the phone taps and associated financial trails, to deciding exactly when Lionel would have started.

And then Lex had the potentially brilliant or insane (she couldn't decide) idea to toss the Ryan brothers into the mix, use everything they'd learned about Lionel's resources against him. Because if Lionel ever played his cards against her, they wanted those cards to backfire. Wanted Clark to be so angry at the sources Lionel had used that he didn't trust a thing that came from them. And barely disguised gangsters were difficult to be painted as security even with the broadest of brushes.

In the end, they became so involved in watching it take shape that they didn't move from their respective places hunched over the kitchen island until Chloe's hunger asserted itself. At that point, they had to come to terms with the fact that a kitchen in a penthouse nobody really lived in or bought food for was pretty much useless. Which led to Lex going in search of his phone, while she went in search of something to drink that would start to dilute the caffeine she'd effectively mainlined since getting up this morning.

After a few minutes, Lex wandered back into the kitchen, still thumbing through his messages. Finally he pocketed it and looked over at where she had perched by the sink with a water glass. "Thai will be here in fifteen."

Chloe gave a mock shiver of delight. "Oh to be rich and spoilt."

"Planning on staging a hunger strike in protest?"

"Mmm," she finished with her water and twisted around to refill the glass from the sink. "No, I think I can overcome my pathologies for Thai."

Moving up beside her, Lex frowned. "You know, I have perfectly good bottled water."

"My recovery is a delicate process to be taken one step at a time."

He reached out to forestall the path of the glass, fingers closing over hers. "Whatever happened to quitting cold-turkey?"

And suddenly, just like that, they weren't talking about food choices, and Lex was offering her something more than water.

Chloe felt her breath catch, and she dropped her eyes down to their joined hands—traitorous, inconstant hands saying things they didn't mean. But everything with Lex, even casual conversation, was like this, a too-fast drive down a mountainside road. Reckless and terrifying and dangerous, with hairpin turns you didn't see coming until almost too late.

But, god, did it make you feel alive.

She'd been revealing in that feeling. Oh, she'd known there was something more than a little wrong, almost blasphemous, about the way they'd been all morning. That after everything they'd said, the wounds they'd inflicted, they could laugh while they bled. But she'd been giddy with the power of having a plan, almost drunk on the high of finally getting a little of her own back.

And she had to put on the brakes now, before she went careening over the edge.

Chloe lifted her eyes to meet Lex's intent, searching gaze and slowly, deliberately pulled her hand away.

For a moment, a beat, Lex just kept looking at her, not with disappointment or judgment, but a kind of tired resignation that said he'd never expected anything different, made her ache just from having witnessed it. Then giving her a darkly knowing smile, he set the glass down beside her with a clink that sounded almost final. "I suppose some things can't be rushed."

He started to step away, but apparently her flirtation with the edge hadn't sobered her up entirely, because the next thing she knew, she was calling him back. "So what? You're my sponsor, now? Guiding me through all twelve steps to an appropriately selfish existence?"

"As intriguing as that sounds, I think I might lack the healing touch. Sociopaths usually do."

Chloe winced. "So group therapy then."

Coming back over, Lex braced his hands against the counter on either side of her and smiled. "Is this the part where we talk about our feelings of inadequacy and abandonment?"

She could help herself. "Are you feeling inadequate?"

"Are you feeling abandoned?"

For a second, they just stayed like that, each daring the other to look away first, locked in a strange game of psychological chicken. In the end she lost, wound up arching her neck and staring at the ceiling, just trying to get away from his gaze. With a sigh, she whispered, "Maybe we'll just stay sick."

"I can live with that." Then Lex moved a fraction closer to add in a whisper, "In fact, in your case, I'm counting on it."

And before she had a chance to ask what the hell he meant by that, he'd stepped back, walking away with the confidence of one who knows he's going to be followed.

And because she was who she was, plagued with a curiosity that was almost deadly in its intensity, she did exactly what he'd expected.

But she refilled her water glass from the tap first.

Small victories.

----

When she came out into the living room, Lex was sitting on the couch with three file folders laid open on the coffee table and the vial of Levitas standing beside them. A full-scale assault on her inquisitive nature that hardly seemed fair.

Keeping a safe distance, back by the kitchen door, she crossed her arms. "Haven't we already had this argument?"

"Yes, and now that you've made your obligatory moral protestations, its time to listen."

"Lex, its not going to change anything."

He frowned in that way that said he didn't believe her, and spread his hands in invitation. "Then there's no harm in hearing me out, is there?"

Chloe looked away. There was plenty of harm, plenty of danger. She didn't have Clark's moral certainty, or Lois's crystal clear bias, or even Martha's tempered compassion. She felt things, and she wanted things, in a way that was all consuming and terrible. Loved Clark with an abandon that was painful, pursued a story with an ambition that was frightening, and she didn't have an off switch, not really. The only way she'd ever found to stop herself was to never start.

But she'd already started this, hadn't she? Even now, knowing what she knew, having faced the ugly reality of what she'd been doing with Lex, she ached to know more, understand better. If Clark was her faith, Lex had become her science. And the draw was no less powerful.

As though sensing her faltering resolve, Lex picked up one of the file-folders and began to read. "Subject two-forty-six. Twenty-five year old African-American male. Low-scale telekinesis with apparent range of three feet, twenty five pounds. Suffers from paranoia and agoraphobia. Now managed by medication."

He set the file back down, and looked up at her expectantly. When she couldn't find her voice, he picked up the next one, "Subject one-twenty-one, forty year old Asian female. Ability to enter an individual's mind during R.E.M. sleep . . ."

33.1 subjects. Dear God, he was reading her the files of the meteor-freaks he kept in that sick petting zoo! And she knew she should already be protesting. Be outraged. Be running. But she wasn't. She was moving closer, drawn by the mystery, the 'Why?' he knew she couldn't leave unanswered.

Not glancing up, Lex continued, "No apparent ability to manipulate the dream images. No known psychological disorders." He flipped the file closed, and reached for the last one, "And my personal favorite of the set. Subject fifty-three, Eastern European male, twenty-one years old. Reported ability to manipulate human movement, used to rig sporting events. Now completely latent. Evaluated as having sociopathic tendencies."

He gave her a sardonic smile, and extended the file out to her. She took it automatically. "I believe you're intimately familiar with that one."

Yes, she was. Mikhail Mxyzptlk, bookie extraordinnaire, with a penchant for power, and at least the passing desire to see her dead. And because she was obviously too messed up for words, her first question wasn't 'how do you live with yourself?' or 'do you know what he's capable of?' or even 'how did you capture him?' but, "Do you know what made him latent?"

"Not yet."

Unable to help herself, she flipped to the test results. The next thing she knew, Lex had come up behind her. Reaching out, he turned a few pages for her and ran his finger down a line of zeroes. Chloe sucked in a surprised breath. "There's no meteor infection."

"None," Lex confirmed. "So the question is, did something get rid of it? Or is he something completely different?"

His question struck a little too close to Clark for her comfort, and she swallowed hard, tried to search for a safe response. Wound up being saved by the doorbell.

Lex gave her knowing look, and then glanced down at his watch. "That's the Thai. Right on time."

He left her standing there, holding evidence of almost unimaginable crimes, and wondering what else he'd learned from them. Going over to the coffee table, she began to rifle through the other files, paging to the test results for each subject, trying to see what the commonality was between them, why he was showing her these three. But there was nothing she could see, the others were just run-of-the-mill meteor-freaks, even their abilities compared to others she'd seen were almost . . . boring.

"You won't find it."

She looked up to find Lex watching her from the doorway a brown takeout bag in his hand, and a satisfied light in his eye that made her set down the files. "Won't find what?"

"A scientific common denominator." Coming over, he began to unpack the food. "There isn't one. From the meteor rock concentrations to the strength of their abilities they're all fascinatingly unique. As genetically similar as you and me, and yet somewhere in that fractional dissimilarity is apparently the potential for things we're just beginning to imagine."

He handed her a container of Pad Thai that smelled amazing. And Chloe was suddenly struck by the dichotomy of the moment. Human experimentation was something to be whispered about in shadows, communicated with coded notes passed in smoke-filled rooms, not discussed calmly over take-out in a brightly decorated living-room. The veneer of normalcy made it seem so distant, so theoretical. Was this how Lex always saw it? An interesting hypothetical, clean and sterile and acceptable, like the simulation of war on a chess-board.

Swallowing back a wave of nausea at the thought, she glared at him, "Is this the pitch? Am I supposed to buy in to the whole 'it's okay because we're furthering science' argument? You know better."

Lex looked up from his Pad Thai. "You're right. I do. I know _you_ better."

The way he said it, the presumption of the statement, made her furious. "You don't know the first thing about me."

He gestured with his fork to her unopened container. "I know you're not going to eat that even though you're starving."

"The fact I lost my appetite just means I have a conscience."

"All right." Newly serious, Lex set his food aside and leaned forward. "I know you take your coffee with skim milk and half a teaspoon of sugar. I know you like the ivy on the balcony because you haven't had green-space to call your own for almost three years. I know you kept up your prescription for the sleeping pills you refused to take at the safe-house. I know you still love Clark more than you want to. I know you don't love your boyfriend as much as you should."

"I don't have to listen to this," She shot up off the couch and headed for the door, but Lex shot out a hand and grabbed her wrist, jerking her back around.

"I know that there's a part of you that's dying to see every file I've got, just because they're there. But I also know you'd never ask." He stood and faced her, fingers still circling her wrist, keeping her prisoner. "Because and I quote 'nothing is worth getting mixed up in my filth.'"

Chloe closed her eyes against the words he threw back at her. "I shouldn't have said that."

"You meant it, though. And I believe you. I don't think there's anything I could offer you that would get you back in that lab. I think you'd sooner run the risk of going crazy and becoming a threat, than consciously choose to get your hands just a little bit dirty."

"Then there's really no point to your negotiations is there."

"Just because there's nothing I can offer _you_, doesn't mean there's nothing I can offer." With a tug, he guided her back to the table, "Because if there's one thing I know about you it's this, even if you won't lift a finger to help yourself, that you'd sell your soul to save someone else."

Grabbing her shoulders, he turned her towards the files with a sudden rough movement. "There you go Chloe. There they are, just waiting to be saved from my clutches. All you have to do . . . is pick one."

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	15. Chapter 11C

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone who's still here. I know this has been delayed, but for those who don't know I'm in the process of leaving my job, moving to another state and studying for my third bar exam in three years. Its been a little busy, please remain patient.

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**Chapter 11C**

Chloe was on her knees, and she didn't have a memory of moving. Just one minute she was standing there with Lex's horrific proposition ringing in her ears, and the next she'd been on the floor hands clutching at the files, the _lives_ resting there.

And all she could think was Lex was right . . . the offer _had_ mattered.

"People." She almost choked on the word as it scraped at her throat. "You're offering people."

Lex didn't say anything, just continued standing there, looking down like some cold impassive god, and she didn't think she had ever hated anyone the way she hated him right now. Even his father was pale shade next to Lex at this moment.

"You sick bastard, you're talking about human beings."

"Yes, we are."

At his deliberate use of the word 'we' something broke inside her. And the horrible thing was, what she felt wasn't anger or disgust or even a resurgence of guilt, but the betrayal contained in that one little word. Because she had let herself become a 'we,' no matter how unconscious or precarious. He had gotten her to think of them as a group, a unified front. But they weren't, they were adversaries, opponents in a knife fight, getting close but only so they could slip the blade in.

How selfish and messed up was it that in the face of concrete proof of Lex's crimes, her strongest emotion was betrayal at finding the knife in her back?

Riding that feeling, the self-disgust that came with it, she stood slowly and faced him toe to toe, met his stone-dead eyes, so blank, so well-schooled to never give away a thing.

Hauling back her hand, she slapped him hard across the face.

Lex saw it coming. There was no way for him not to. But he let her do it all the same, just stood there and took it, and she didn't know whether it was because he knew she needed it or thought he deserved it, or both.

Gingerly he touched the reddened flesh of his cheek. "Feel better?"

She scowled, "If only it were that easy."

"Would it help if I turned the other cheek?" he whispered, in a way that sounded like an offer.

Chloe almost said yes because while physical violence might not solve anything, it still felt like something. She turned away instead. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you need me to."

"I need this?" she scoffed, and turned back around to glare at him, "How? How do I need emotional blackmail? Really, I'm dying to know."

"Because you won't let yourself come back any other way," Lex snapped, sounding irritated and tired, and a little desperate, too much like someone trying to persuade a friend into rehab and not enough like the cold sociopath trying to keep his puppet on their strings.

"Don't you dare," she hissed, "Don't you dare pretend this is about anything other than manipulating me into doing what you want."

"It's what you want, too. Or did you forget the part where you came to me?"

"I never wanted _this_," she grabbed a file and shook it at him, "This is a person with a family-"

"And a bright future, and I'm sure he'll be up for the Nobel in a few years." Lex yanked the file out of her hand, "Wake up, Chloe. He's an isolated, paranoid agoraphobe with a potentially dangerous ability he can't control when he's off medication."

"It doesn't change the fact that what you're doing to these people is wrong."

"So you came to me for what? My charming personality? My smoldering good looks? Or, I know, you wanted an excuse to spend quality time together." He tossed the file back down on the coffee table with a sneer of derision, "You came to me for _exactly_ this. For what I can do, for the information I've gotten by being that sick bastard you despise so much."

Chloe pressed her lips together, fighting back a sob, forcing it into a closed-mouth scream of anger and frustration that was safer. "What do you want?! An admission of guilt? Fine, you've got it. I'm guilty. I got scared and I got selfish. But I came to my senses and got out."

"And that's helping who, exactly?"

The question was so like Lex, deceptively neutral, not an accusation, not even a challenge really, just a horrible cutting observation, that robbed her of her momentum and left her foundering. Because the answer came too quickly—no one. She was helping no one. And suddenly it was all just too much—the children in those photographs, the people in these files—so many people she wasn't helping, couldn't help . . . She dropped into the chair, with a tired sigh, "Just let me go, Lex."

"I'm not your jailer." Coming over, Lex sat down on the corner of the coffee table and picked up one of the files, "And whatever you think these aren't chains."

"Aren't they?" she asked bitterly, "Isn't that why you put those files in front of me? Because you knew how I'd react, that I wouldn't be able to say no."

"You seem to be saying it just fine."

She looked away.

"You're right though, I did know how you'd react. Or at least, I made a very educated guess." Lex turned the file over in his hands. "In order to successfully negotiate with anyone you have to know two things, what they want out of a deal, and what they need to be able to agree to the deal. In your case, what you wanted was the easy part, after all you told me that in no uncertain terms." He gave her a wry smile before continuing, "Usually, if you're willing to give that, you've already met the other party's needs. And that was my mistake, thinking that like everyone else, your wants would be greater than your needs. But they're not, are they? You need so much more than you ever let yourself ask for."

He had bent forward, tilting his head slightly so that he was looking up at her, eyes searching for confirmation of his insight, and she couldn't remember the last time anyone had looked at her like that, like they wanted to know her, like she was fascinating and they wanted to reach inside and riddle her out. Maybe no one ever had.

Chloe closed her eyes against his gaze and swallowing hard, tried to put a dismissive note in her voice, "I assume you're going somewhere with this."

"I've spent a lot of time these past three weeks thinking about why you walked away from something you obviously want so badly."

"If you don't know-"

She stopped at the feel of Lex's fingertips on her lips. He kept them there until she opened her eyes, and then a beat longer.

"I know the reason." And for a moment it felt like he did, like he understood all too well. Then he removed his hand. "You can't benefit from something you believe is wrong."

"It is wrong."

Lex's mouth twitched in a way that could have been a smile or a grimace, but he continued as if she hadn't spoken, "You need to know your part is right, to know that what you did was the best possible choice, not for you, but for everyone else. So that's what I'm offering," he stood and dropped the file back in her lap, "the best possible choice."

And then he walked over to the wet bar in the corner, left her to stare down at the file her lap, hand resting on the outside cover, eyes fixed on the subject number—two forty six. Hers was two thirteen. Did that mean he had been taken after? If so, he had only been in that place for a few weeks. The others had been earlier, could have been there for years, being poked and prodded. Did you let someone go who'd been in longer or try to get people out before they got too scarred?

Abruptly realizing what she was doing, Chloe hurled the file across the room with a cry of anger.

Turning, Lex took a sip of scotch and surveyed the wreckage with an impassive eye. "Should I take that as a no?"

"You don't even see it do you?" She had moved from the chair, on some vague thought about cleaning up her mess, but she found herself just staring down at the pages scattered across the floor, pieces of a life. "You just see paper and data, assets and liabilities to be totaled up on some ledger. But it's not an equation, Lex. You can't manipulate something into being the right choice. There are absolutes in this world."

"Are there?" he countered, moving to stand with her amidst the destruction, "I don't know any more. I used to believe in gravity, but this man defies it on a whim." He pointed over to one of the files on the table. "I used to think my mind was my own, but that woman can slip in and out at her choosing. Miracles are commonplace and our weapons might as well be white flags for all the good they seem to do. Someone out there is rewriting all the rules. I'm just trying to keep up."

"Spare me the situational ethics sales-pitch."

"All right," Lex nodded thoughtfully and then spread his hands, "Here's the hard sell. We're on the frontlines of a new world Chloe. And believe what you will about whether I'm on the wrong side, at least I'm in fight. Not standing on the hillside, cursing the carnage and hoping it doesn't come my way. So the question is . . . where are you?"

"Not joining your army."

"Good. You've never really struck me as the type to take orders." he walked back over to the wet bar and picked up his drink.

"Sorry, my insane megalomaniac is a little rusty. What is it you want from me, Lex?"

"I want you to stop sitting on your hands just so you can keep them clean!" He advanced on her. "I want you to stop playing the victim because it leaves you blameless. I want you to fight, and if this is your price? Well, I'm willing to pay that."

"And if its not?"

"It's called a negotiation for a reason, Chloe."

The invitation was obvious. Tantalizing and terrifying. More. She could get more, do more, for these people, and all she had to do was come back, say yes to the thing she wanted so much.

All she had to do was sacrifice her principles.

And if she said no? If she walked away, left these people to rot, was she keeping them anyway? Would she be able to look at herself in the mirror, knowing she could have done something and didn't?

Would she be able to look at herself in the mirror knowing she did?

She knelt down and started to gather up the file, taking the time to sort the pages as she ordered her thoughts. Lex made no move to help, just perched on the arm of chair, sipping his scotch, and watched and waited.

"It's not enough," she said before she knew what she was doing. "One isn't enough."

"Give me a number."

"All of them."

"No," Lex said with a dry chuckle and shook his head, "Though its good to see you're not in danger of undervaluing your worth."

"And if I won't agree otherwise?"

He gestured to the door with his glass. "I told you I'm not your jailer."

"Just everyone else's."

Lex leaned forward to face her, rolling the tumbler in his hands, "These victims you're so anxious to set free . . . on average they have a 2.8 person kill rate. The rest have either a history of violence or psychiatric problems or both. The majority couldn't be kept in a standard jail even if our court system knew how to prosecute them. So no, I won't release them all." He flicked her a sardonic smile. "Not even for you."

Chloe rolled her eyes, "Spare me the false flattery."

Ignoring the barb, Lex took a sip of his scotch and added, "I'm still waiting for a realistic number Chloe."

A realistic number . . . God, only Lex could expect her to do that, value her cooperation in human life, weigh it and balance it and parse it down to a figure. Chloe Sullivan equals thirty meteor freaks no more, no less. She sunk back on her heels at reordered the pages, stalling for time. "How do I even know you'll keep your word? Whatever number I give you."

"I think experience gives me greater cause for concern on that front."

"Why am I not comforted?"

"It's a fair point though. How do I make sure you don't suddenly develop a brand new attack of conscience, and I'm once again left with very expensive, very incomplete research?"

She shivered at the contemplative note in his voice, the obvious serious consideration he was giving the problem. Because she didn't doubt he'd find an answer. Years ago she had found that quality enviable, the way Lex never saw an insurmountable obstacle, simply a solution waiting to be found. Now that blind unwavering determination to get what he wanted was just one more reason to fear him.

And yet . . .

"We need an installment plan."

The suggestion surprised her more than Lex, who was already nodding in agreement. "A more direct quid pro quo. Say a one to one trade? I'll give you the choice of one subject for every day's worth of experiments."

She gaped at him. In a strange skewed way, the offer was unnervingly generous. Before she'd ended things they'd been averaging at least two days a week. Two subjects a week . . . that was real good, tangible good she could do. And because of that she started looking for the catch. "Since letting me watch them walk out would involve letting me know where they're kept, how do you plan on proving they've been released?"

"I'll give you an extra question on the Levitas."

"And that you haven't killed or recaptured them later?"

The glass stalled mid-sip and Lex's lips curved in that amused appreciation that always made her feel like she'd pleased him in some way. She hated it. "I would say I was disappointed in your lack of faith, if I weren't so impressed." He leaned over and set the glass on the coffee-table, picked up the vial of Levitas. "I could keep giving you questions, but depending how long this goes on, that could get tedious. What about their location once they're gone? Check in on them or not as you want."

"Aren't you worried I'm going to . . ." her voice trailed off, as a horrible realization settled over her, "You're going to wipe their memories, aren't you?"

He just looked at her, didn't say anything, didn't need to. It was the only way this made any sense.

"You're going to wipe their memories, the way you wiped mine. Only this time you're not taking a night or day. You're taking months, years. You're going to take years of their lives, just to protect yourself."

"It's not a negotiable point."

"Not a-" she couldn't even get the words out. Oh God, she was negotiating this! She'd actually been negotiating this, like a business transaction. She'd used the words 'installment plan.' "I can't do this. I'm _not_ doing this."

She scrambled to her feet, made a beeline for her purse. And then Lex's voice slammed into her back and changed her world with two quiet words.

"You're stabilizing."

Chloe froze, closed her eyes. "You're lying."

"We should have caught it earlier, but the localization is your bloodstream, which is why it appeared to still be migrating. But Hall has been running comparisons of your baselines. The increase is small, but its there."

She heard Lex come over to her, but she didn't turn, didn't open her eyes, just repeated the words she wanted to be true. "You're lying. You're just manipulating me-"

Her voice caught at the feeling of Lex's hand closing over hers, prying open her fingers one by one.

"You know you've lost, and this is just a last ditch-"

He pressed the cool glass of the vial into her palm-

"A last ditch attempt-"

Folded her fingers over it. Held it there.

And she could hear herself, what she'd asked at the beginning of the day.

_So what moved up your timeline for manipulation?_

_You did._

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	16. Chapter 11D

**A/N:** God, I am so sorry for the delays on this. I have no excuse other than the move and my new job, and I know this is really probably the wrong fic to be updating given the season, but its something right? Okay, again mea culpa, and I hope somebody still cares.

**A/N2:** I wrote three openings to this chapter all of which were crap, until MelBee took pity on me and pointed out how badly I was writing Chloe. Thank her for the fact this isn't horrendously out of character.

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**Chapter 11D**

_You're stabilizing._ The words fell like a death knell, echoing inside her like the bang of a gavel after a jury's verdict of guilty. She was stabilizing. Even as she tried to believe otherwise, tried to write it off as a lie, a con born of Lex's warped mind, she knew it was fruitless. Knew it long before Lex peeled back her fingers and pressed the cool glass of the vial of _Levitas_ into her palm. She felt the truth of it in her bones, the words had felt right, felt real the moment Lex said them.

She'd been living with this fear so long it had become part of her fabric, until she thought that she had mentally lived every nightmare scenario, prepared herself for the worst. But she was wrong. This was the worst, this cold dreadful certainty.

Now she knew . . . fear had been her friend. Fear had meant hope, meant possibilities. And suddenly all of that had dropped away, like the trap door of a gallows leaving her helpless and falling.

Lex was watching her, she could feel it. Even with her eyes were closed, she could feel his gaze on her face, examining her for the tiniest sign of desperation or indication of weakness. The knowledge was the only thing keeping her from bursting into tears. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Shakily, fighting to affect a calm she didn't feel, she asked, "How long?"

"Weeks." She sucked in a sharp intake of breath. Lex continued flatly, "Or months. Or years. They're still running the models."

"Best guess?"

"I'm not going to give you one, not until you submit to a new scan."

"Of course," she muttered forcing a laugh to disguise a sob, "Why should I expect you to exhibit one moment of human decency when there's an advantage to be gained."

"Chloe-"

She cut him off, unwilling to hear whatever he was going to say. It didn't matter. "How long have _you_ known?"

Silence.

Eyes snapping open, she demanded, "How long, Lex?"

He met her glare, eyes flat and unapologetic. "A week."

"A week . . ." Chloe almost choked on the words, "You've known for a week, and you never- Just when I think-" Suddenly realizing he still held her hand in his, she jerked back, fingers tightening around the _Levitas_ as she did so.

The vial shattered in her hand, shards of glass lodging in the flesh of her palm.

"Dammit." She tried to flex her hand, cursed again at the pain. "Dammit!"

Lex took a half step towards her but she twisted away, blocking any attempt at assistance. Right now she'd lose the hand before she accepted his help. "I'm fine. Just . . ." she hissed as one of the glass fragments went deeper, "Just leave me alone."

Not giving him the chance to protest, she made her way to the bathroom. Her hand was bleeding like crazy now, obscuring her ability to assess the damage. Turning on the tap, she ran her hand under the lukewarm water, trying to wash away the mixture of blood and _Levitas_that decorated her skin.

Once she did, she could see that the damage wasn't as bad as she had originally feared. The cuts didn't seem to be that deep and the few fragments of glass were large enough to be picked out with relative ease. As best she could tell there wasn't anything that required stitches, provided she could manage to stop the bleeding.

Still although the cuts were all relatively shallow, they were myriad and when she grabbed a pristine white towel off the rack to press it into her wounds the pain reasserted itself with a vengeance.

Dammit, she wouldn't be able to type for days.

It was the last straw. Everything else, every single emotional sucker punch of the last twenty-four hours—shoring up Clark and Lana, using Jimmy, fighting with Lex, even learning she was stabilizing—she could take it, she could fucking take it and come up swinging. But to take her writing . . . even for a little while . . . it was too much.

It just was too damned much.

Against her will she started to cry, little stifled sobs as she cradled her hand to her chest like a wounded animal. It wasn't fair. Dammit, it wasn't fair. Everything she'd done, everything she'd sacrificed, why her? Any sins she'd committed, hadn't she paid them in full? Hadn't she?!

And suddenly she was crying about everything, every hurt and loss and heartbreak, every emotional wound she'd never tended because someone else needed her, every time she had pushed them into a corner, locked them away because she had to be the strong one, the together one. It all broke free, threatened to overwhelm her in a torrent of emotion she couldn't handle. _Not here,_ she thought, _Any place but here. Any other time but this._

But she'd made that bargain too many times already, and her credit had apparently run out.

So she just stood there, hunched over the sink, as every tear she'd never let herself cry took its pound of flesh with interest.

Her hand stopped bleeding long before the tears stopped coming, but they finally did, leaving her spent and exhausted. Using her good hand she splashed some water on her face and looked up.

Lex stood just outside the bathroom door watching her, face tight, eyes unreadable. Then his gaze locked on hers in the mirror and she couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Her control was so precarious, so fragile right now, and if he made one move, took one step towards her, she'd lose it. _Go._ She begged silently. _Please, if there is anything even remotely decent left in you, leave me alone._

Without a word, Lex reached out and closed the bathroom door.

----

The problem she had discovered with spending so much time in a place where no one lived was that it lacked the practicalities, the little things that you naturally collected as necessities as you went about your everyday, but never thought about until you needed them.

In this case . . . bandages.

After reconfirming for what felt like the fifteenth time that the bathroom was indeed completely devoid of anything resembling a first-aid kit, Chloe shut the door to the medicine cabinet with a groan.

"Shit."

She didn't want to go back out there. Didn't want to face Lex, or anybody else for that matter. She just wanted to get her things and go home, wanted to crawl into her bed and not come out for days, maybe months. Instead she was stuck here in the bathroom of this mockery of a home with a man who dealt human lives like playing cards just outside the door.

But she couldn't even drive, not like this, not unless she at least found something to wrap her hand.

_Get it together, Chloe. This is life, its sucks and its hard and completely unfair, cowboy up and accept it._

As mental pep-talks went, this one fell a little flat. But it at least got her to open the door.

Lex didn't look up when she came into the living area, just kept paging through a stack of papers, occasionally making notes in the margin. Finally, he sat back with sigh. "Five months."

Chloe just stared at him.

"That's my best guess. It's a paltry amount of data, and Hall won't confirm that without more information, so in all likelihood it's wrong. But based on increases thus far, assuming the progression is linear to a threshold at the lowest of the levels we've seen . . ." he sighed again, as though running out of steam, "We've got five months."

She couldn't deal with this right now.

"There aren't any bandages."

Lex sat forward, "Chloe, we need-"

She waved her good hand, cutting him off, "No! _We_ don't need to do anything. There is no we in this. There is just me, just _my_ life. And I need to leave. I need to wrap my hand so I can drive as far away from here and you as possible. And to do that, I need a _fucking_bandage."

Lex looked at her for a moment, a muscle in his jaw working convulsively. Then he got up and walked into the kitchen, leaving her standing in the middle of the living room like a fool.

When Chloe entered the kitchen, it was to find one of the more surreal tableaus she had ever witnessed—Lex Luthor standing at the island, stripped down to a t-shirt methodically cutting what had to be a three hundred dollar oxford into strips.

She said the only thing she could think of. "A bed-sheet would have been less dramatic."

"They're silk. It seemed excessive." Lex finished cutting a strip and held it out.

Chloe took it and gingerly began to wind the cloth around her damaged palm. The effort was clumsy and fruitless. She'd injured her dominant hand and her left just didn't have the same dexterity. Add to that the fact that she could bend the fingers of her right hand enough to hold the fabric in place as she wound, and she didn't even bother to protest when Lex took over, wrapping the strip first around her wrist and then up over her hands in a technique she realized he must use for boxing.

When he went to cut another strip, she asked, "What are you going to tell Lana happened to your shirt?"

"Nothing." He started to wrap her hand again.

"She won't care?"

"She won't notice."

Lex's hands froze as if he'd suddenly realized what he'd just said, and for everything that had happened, everything she knew and wanted to forget, Chloe couldn't help the momentary flicker of pity at the depths of resignation in that one little statement. "Lex, I-"

"Don't," he ground out between clenched teeth, as he roughly pulled the wrap even tighter.

"I didn't mean-"

His grip tightened fractionally on her hand, but it was enough to cut her off and cause her to hiss in pain. "I said don't."

With that he finished tying off her bandage and stalked back into the living room.

For some reason the demand infuriated her. He'd thrown up her problems with Clark at every turn, mocked her feelings, and torn at her heart with impunity. Earlier he'd watched her break like she was a side show, an amusement, and now she was what? Supposed to tread lightly around his sore spots? Supposed to care if he hurt?

Screw that. She wanted to see him bleed.

Moving into the doorway, she said, "You're a week away from marrying Lana, and she doesn't even know you, doesn't see you. You know that, right? Know she's settling."

Lex muttered something low under his breath, and grabbed his half empty glass of scotch off the coffee table. "Not. One. More. Word."

Like hell.

"Is getting back at Clark really so important?"

"It's not about Clark."

"Then what is it? What could possibly be worth potentially ruining the life of the one person in this world you seem to be actually capable of genuine feeling for?"

"She's my last chance!"

The words hung there, terrible and desperate, and for a moment Chloe felt like she might throw up. Then with a roar that was almost inhuman Lex hurled the glass against the wall a foot away from her head.

Chloe flinched, but she couldn't move, she felt rooted, frozen with fear and guilt. She hadn't wanted this, didn't want to know this.

Breath still coming in harsh, ragged gasps, Lex went over and popped the latches on the silver case that sat on the coffee-table, without a word he took out the injector, followed it with a vial of the antidote.

Oh God. The _Levitas_. She'd questioned while on the _Levitas._

It had gotten into her cuts, into her blood stream, when she'd shattered the vial in her hand. And she'd questioned him while on it, used it to demand answers she didn't have a right to.

Tentatively she came over to the table, knelt down across from him. "Lex-" he shot her a look that was almost deadly, but she pressed on careful to phrase a statement rather than a question, "It's not true. Lana's not your last anything."

Face set, eyes cold he picked up the injector. "Roll up your sleeve."

"Wh- What are you doing?"

"I'm giving you the antidote, and then you're going to get out. We're done."

There was a finality in his words that chilled her, and with a sinking feeling she realized he meant it. They were done, completely and utterly. He wouldn't chase after her, wouldn't try to convince her to change her mind. He'd leave her to Clark and his father and her infection and her goddamned moral high-ground that had never once given her anything in return.

Suddenly, she felt impossibly powerless and alone.

Scrambling up, she put her injured hand over the injection site like she could ward him off. "Two. I want two."

Lex went rigid. "What are you doing, Chloe?"

She was fighting for something that up until a moment ago she hadn't wanted, might not want tomorrow. But right now it felt like the most important thing in her world. "I'm negotiating, giving you a reasonable number. I want two 33.1 subjects for every day's worth of experiments."

"The offer's closed."

"Bullshit." His head snapped up in surprise and she pressed, "I could ask, but I don't have to. Just tell me Lex, tell me you don't want me back in that lab, don't want every single possible drop of data you can squeeze out of me. Tell me, that you're actually going to let your personal feelings get in the way. That you really want me to walk out that door. Lie. You're good at it. I'll believe you."

Lex set down the injector. "Two days a week, three subjects for the weeks work."

She shook her head. "I've got five months. I want more days than that, and I want more people. Two a day."

"Push yourself that hard and you'll barely be able to sit up let alone select subjects to be released."

"I'll deal. Two."

He nodded. "Two."

"And I get their location when they're released?"

"You get their location."

"I want you to find them a job."

"Oh, for the love of-"

"A job Lex, yes or no?"

"Yes. Anything else? A trip to Cancun, perhaps?"

Three questions, that was the bargain, she wasn't exceeding it again. Smiling wanly, she took a deep breath, and made her final demand. "I don't want to go in." At his blank look she clarified, "To 33.1. I know its selfish given . . ." she gestured lamely to files on the coffee table, "But if I don't . . . if we can't . . ." God, she couldn't even make herself say the words.

"Ask the question, Chloe."

She swallowed hard, blew out a shuddering breath, "Do you promise you won't lock me up, no matter what?"

Lex didn't hesitate, "Yes."

"Okay." Chloe murmured letting what she'd just done sink in, then started to roll up her sleeve. "Okay, give me the counteragent."

Coming around, Lex reached out to hold her forearm steady, lined up the injector, then paused. "Anything else?"

She knew what he was asking. There was a glaring loophole in that last promise she had just extracted, and he was giving her one last chance to at least try to close it. Even if he wouldn't agree, the very act of asking would mean something.

Chloe just shook her head. Making a completely different request with her silence.

His hand tightened on her arm, "You're sure?"

She nodded, "It can't be Clark. I can't let it be Clark." Her mouth twisted in a mocking smile. "I guess that makes you my last chance."

Lex just slipped the needle into her vein and administered the counteragent.

- + - + - + - + -

*Whew* finally done with Chapter 11, and it only took me what eight months? Sigh. Okay on to different, more interesting scenes.


	17. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Relatively short chapter this time, but as I worked with it I didn't feel like this belonged thematically all in the same chapter as what's coming. Plus you know, trying to keep the fires fed. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter 12**

_"A man can't deny his true nature, can he, Lex? No. We're Luthors." _

- Lionel Luthor "Onyx"

----

Jimmy was waiting for her when she got home that night, sitting on the steps in the alleyway, a bouquet of tired flowers in hand. Chloe dropped her forehead to the steering wheel.

She'd never called him.

She'd run out in the middle of the night with nothing more than a cryptic note . . .

And hadn't given him another thought.

Dammit, she didn't want to do this. Didn't want him here. It was so wrong. Other people went through hell, had their hearts ripped out and came home drained, and they turned to their loved one, their spouse, their lover, boyfriend, girlfriend. They had someone who carried their burdens, and they were thankful.

There stood Jimmy waiting to carry hers.

And she just wanted him to leave.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the car door and stepped out careful to keep her right hand in her pocket as she did so. That was one explanation she didn't have right now.

Jimmy rose from the steps to greet her with a tentative, "Hey."

"Hey." She looked down at the bouquet he had clutched in his hand, "Are those for me?"

Jimmy glanced down at the flowers in confusion, as if he'd forgotten they were there. "Yeah, I um . . . I felt like I owed you flowers after last night, but the thing is . . . I don't really know _why_ I feel like I owe you flowers."

There was hurt in his voice, like a puppy that'd been kicked and didn't know what it had done wrong. She shook her head, and came towards him, "You don't owe me flowers. You don't owe me anything. I'm the one that should be apologizing for not calling today. I'd put my phone on silent. I'm sorry Jimmy, really I am." She gave him her best I'm-so-grateful-you-put-up-with-me smile. "You know how I can get, put me on the trail of a story and it's blinders on, full-speed ahead."

He took a half-step back, pressed his lips together, "So you skipped out last night because you were working on a story."

Chloe's heart began to sink, but she was committed now, come hell or high-water. "I left you a note."

"Yeah, I got it. And then I came by the Planet to bring you lunch, and nobody had seen you since eleven the night before. So I called your cell, and I called your home, and I called Lois, like a dozen times and nothing, it was like you'd disappeared off the face of the earth. I even called Clark for all the good it did me."

"You called Clark?" She knew it was the wrong thing to focus on, just knew it, and yet she couldn't help focusing on it, all the same.

Jimmy gave her a mocking, accusatory smile, "He wasn't picking up either."

"Okay, Jimmy, stop." Chloe sighed. She had neither the inclination nor the patience to deal with this right now, to handle it the way Jimmy deserved to have it handled. And she just couldn't bring herself to care. "This thing you have about Clark. It's got to stop. I wasn't with him, and frankly the insinuation that I did something wrong if I was . . . it's insulting. Either I'm your girlfriend and you trust me, or you don't and I'm not. Either way, I'm tired and right now all I care about is getting a hot bath. So I'm gonna go take one. Call me when you've decided which it is."

She turned and started up the stairs.

"You don't get it, do you?"

"I get that because I failed to answer my phone today you drove all the way out to Smallville to practically accuse me of cheating on you."

"I drove out to Smallville because I was worried about you! Because I was going out of my mind imagining every possible worst case scenario. And then I think maybe you're mad at me, maybe you lied about where you were going and blew off my calls because I did something and you couldn't stand the sight of me, so I've sat here for the last hour alternating between getting ready to call in the National Guard and berating myself for being such an asshole I didn't even notice I'd hurt you." He took a step back and threw up his hands, "But you're fine and I'm apparently not an asshole. So I can't help but stand here and wonder . . . why? Why am I standing here, Chloe?"

_Because you're in love with someone who doesn't exist. Because I'm fighting for my life and don't know how to tell you. Because you want more than I can give you._

Those and a multitude of other reasons came to her mind right then. A dozen truthful explanations that would have given him the answers he deserved. But all of them would have ended this, and even the hope he represented was better than the reality of being alone. So instead she leaned against the door, and said, "Jimmy, there are parts of my life, sometimes really big parts, that I'm not going to be able to share with you. And I'm sorry if that's hard for you, but . . ."

"It's not hard. It's impossible."

"Jimmy-"

"No, I'm sorry. But I've had a lot of time to think about this today, and call me old-fashioned but for me being with someone, _loving _someone, means sharing your life with that person, means letting that person in. It means that I wouldn't be standing here looking at you and wondering what broke you open today, whether you're ever going to tell me." He looked up at her face twisted in an agony that was nearly physical, and whispered, "I love you Chloe, but this, watching you hurt and not knowing what hurt you, it's _killing_ me. Either I'm your boyfriend and you let me in, or you don't and I'm not."

He bent forward and put the flowers on the bottom step, "Call me when you've decided which it is."

----

Chloe watched as Jimmy disappeared into the night, acutely aware that he was, in all likelihood, walking out of her life. She wanted to tell him to come back, not to give up on her. Wanted to run after him like a romantic comedy heroine, and get her happy ending.

She didn't move a muscle. Everything Jimmy had said was true, but it didn't change the fact that everything she'd said was too. There were entire facets of her life she'd never be able to share with someone else, and she couldn't change that, no matter how badly it hurt or how alone it left her.

She didn't examine the fact that this time her silence had nothing to do with her loyalty to Clark.

"Ah the course of true love . . . did it ever run smooth?"

Chloe couldn't help the bitter laugh that came to the back of her throat as the disembodied question, floated across the alleyway on a voice of silk and burlap. It was just too fucking perfect, the knockout punch to cap off the last twenty-four hours of emotional rope-a-dope.

Tilting her head back to rest against the door, she looked up at the sky and asked, "You know, what is it about Luthors that they never just pick up a phone? Is it the overage charges? Because really, I can recommend some crackerjack plans."

Lionel chuckled softly as he stepped into the path of the security lights, somehow managing to transform them into his own personal follow-spot. "Come now Ms. Sullivan, surely you of all people must be aware of the value we Luthors place on the, shall we say, _personal_ touch."

Oh, she was so not in the mood.

But before she could cut him off, he moved to the bottom step and continued, "Besides as you and my son once so aptly demonstrated, digital communication can be somewhat . . . unpredictable. Once something . . . say a picture?" Lionel held up a black and white photograph and came closer, his voice taking on an air of false concern, "Well once something like this is digital, there's no telling what might happen, where it might end up, all with the careless push of a button. And I would hate to see that happen."

He was level with her now, extending the photograph in front of her as if for inspection. And though she'd prepared herself for exactly this moment, she hadn't prepared herself for the image the photograph contained . . . not any of the shots she and Lex had so carefully staged, but one unintended moment—Lex standing over her as she lay in bed, fingers trailing along the base of her exposed back.

Unconsciously, Chloe found herself reaching out for the picture, there was something in Lex's face, something almost . . .

"I must say looking at this I can understand my son's fascination." His hand grazed her low back, a mocking echo of Lex's touch, and against her will she flinched.

Getting herself together, she handed the picture back with a carelessness she didn't feel. "This could be anyone."

Lionel didn't take it. "Come now my dear. You know better. If I have one, there are others. There was just something about the composition of this one that spoke to me. You take a stunning photograph, Chloe."

She made a quick calculation. At this point continued denial was pointless. After all they'd wanted this, wanted Lionel's attention focused on this path, better to keep leading him down it than to push back hard enough that he might start to question his assumptions. She leaned against the stairway railing and crossed her arms. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to be frightened and ask what you want? Because, if you remember, the last time you threatened me didn't work out so well for you. Unless, of course, you're missing the prison camaraderie."

For an instant Lionel's mask of concerned affability dropped, and she could see the explosive rage just beneath the surface. It made her blood go cold. She was right, that predator he had always been, it was still there, still wanted her blood. And she realized that whatever Lionel's long game, however much of a gain he hoped to make with Clark, there was a part of this that was for nothing more than the simple pleasure of toying with her and seeing her bleed.

Then just as fast, he reclaimed his composure, and frowned as though hurt by her accusation, "Really Chloe, all this time spent with my son . . . it's made you paranoid. I'm merely expressing my continued concern about this self-destructive course of action. After all, my son is marrying the fair Ms. Lang on Saturday, and I would so hate to see you heartbroken. Think of this visit as a friendly warning."

"Well, consider me warned." she gave him an ice-pick smile, and gestured to the alleyway, "I wouldn't want to take up anymore of your time."

He didn't move, just looked at her right hand, "My dear, you've hurt your hand." Before she could stop him he reached out and took it both of his, "You should have this looked at."

"I'm fine."

"Well, at the very least change the bandage. As romantic as my son's gesture of sacrificing what, if I'm not mistaken, is one of his favorite shirts, might be, it's hardly a substitute for proper medical care," he dropped her hand, "But then Lex has always had a weak spot for the grand gesture."

She shrugged diffidently, "The bed-sheets are silk. It seemed excessive."

"Mmm." Lionel flashed her a slight, insincere smile, and started to make his way back down the steps, "You're playing a very dangerous game Ms. Sullivan. And I can't help but wonder whether you even know all the rules."

"As touching as your concern is, I can take care of myself."

"Oh, I highly doubt that." he turned and looked up at her, eyes dancing in cruel amusement, "Are you familiar with the fable of the scorpion and the frog?"

"The scorpion asks the frog to carry him across the river-"

Lionel took over the tale, " 'No,' protests the frog, 'you're a scorpion, you'll sting me.' 'Don't worry,' the scorpion reassures him, 'if I were to sting you, we'll both drown.' So the frog agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion stings the frog anyway. 'Why would you do that?' asks the frog, 'Now we're both going to die.' The scorpion simply replies, 'I'm a scorpion. It's my nature.'"

He locked his gaze on hers. "Don't be fooled by my son, my dear. Whatever gestures of chivalry he may make, whatever he has told you, whatever control you think you have, sooner or later he will betray you. It is, quite simply, Lex's nature."

Struggling to ignore the verbalization of what, she knew all too well, was the truth, she retorted, "And what does that say about your nature?"

Lionel just smiled and started to walk away, throwing over his shoulder as he did so. "Keep the picture. After all, I have copies."

----

She burned the photograph in the kitchen sink, watched as the paper curled and slowly turned to ash, unable to look away from image that stared up at her. She could feel the ghost of Lex's fingers, there at her back, almost gentle, almost . . .

_You still have the scars._

Yes, she still had them, was starting to worry that she might always have them. She washed the ashes down the sink and closed her eyes.

_Sooner or later he will betray you. It is, quite simply, Lex's nature._

The horrible truth was he already had, and it didn't seem to matter.


	18. Chapter 13

**A/N:** One of the advantages of realizing that one part shouldn't be included in with another thematically, is that you've already got the second part halfway written. So without another word, away we go . . .

- + - + - + - + - + -  
**Chapter 13**

Despite everything, Saturday came quietly.

Chloe honestly hadn't expected it to, maybe in some part of her she'd imagined it would never come at all, but as the day began to creep up, she found herself holding her breath waiting for something to happen. For Clark to man up and whisk Lana away, for Lana's ever-present doubts to finally overwhelm her, for an apocalypse . . . just something.

She was waiting for someone or something to stop this wedding so she wouldn't have to feel so guilty that she wasn't.

She'd picked up the phone a dozen times to call Lana, to tell her everything. What she knew about Lex's experiments in 33.1, what she'd seen in those files. Her friend had a right to know what kind of man she was marrying, didn't she?

And yet every time she did, she found herself halfway to dialing Lex's number instead.

It had been her first instinct after Lionel showed up, to call him, apprise him of the danger, assess the continuing validity of the plan, the likelihood his father would pull the trigger before they could move all their pieces into place. Lex had a way of making her feel irrationally in control. Not because he promised to fix her problems for her, but specifically because he didn't. With Lex she had to fight and negotiate and scramble for every little concession, every victory, and that process, that fight, gave her a way to push back the growing fear of everything in her life that couldn't be negotiated or bargained with.

The realization of exactly how much she'd come to rely on that illusion stilled her hand.

Because it was an illusion, because as much as she hated to admit Lionel was right about anything, the one thing she couldn't hope to control . . . was Lex himself.

The fact that a little part of her kept seeing his face in that photograph every time she closed her eyes was all the more reason to keep her distance. She was trying to find something that wasn't there as a way to rationalize an involvement that was completely irrational, and she needed to stop.

So she didn't call Lex.

And she didn't call Lana.

And Clark apparently never said a word.

And Saturday came.

----

Lana stood on the dresser's box watching in the mirror as Chloe laced up the bodice of her gown, her face a mask of quiet resolution that Chloe couldn't help but think might be the saddest thing she'd ever seen. Nobody about to get married should look so . . . determined about it.

"The florist got everything set up okay?" Lana asked for what had to be the fourth time in the past hour. She had been doing this all day, checking and double checking every detail with an intensity Chloe hadn't seen since the day she opened the Talon, as though by insisting all the outwards trappings of this wedding were exactly right, she could ensure the rightness of the choice itself.

Chloe dropped her head, ostensibly to focus on tightening the ribbons, but mostly so Lana couldn't see her expression in the full length mirror. "For the last time, the florist has come and gone and the Church looks beautiful. Calm down." Obediently Lana blew out a long breath, that Chloe could tell absolutely failed to calm.

Sure enough, two-seconds later, Lana asked, "The caterers know there's going to be an extra four people right?"

"They know and are prepared. I think they would have found a way to be prepared for another hundred people after Lex talked to them. Relax. You know he'd have heads if anyone ruined this for you. Let him go be the imposing billionaire and take care of it."

"Lex loves me," Lana murmured, voice two parts reassurance and one part despair.

Chloe just kept working on the laces.

Finally, she finished securing the bodice and took a step back to give a critical eye to her handiwork. A Vera Wang photo-shoot it was not. "You know, you really shouldn't have had me kick the wedding coordinator out. This is so not my forte."

Lana shook her head, "I wanted these last moments to just be us, no servants or consultants. Just you, just my family."

Chloe's head snapped up to meet Lana's gaze in the mirror. "Lana- I-"

The other girl turned to smile at her, a little sadly. "I know I'm not really your family, and I haven't always been the person you could rely on. But for some reason, you've been mine. After everything that's happened this past year, with Clark and then Lex, well, anyone else wouldn't have bothered. And I know what everyone else thinks, about me and Lex. They want to warn me or judge me or save me. But you . . . you've just been there, without any judgments or agendas. You have been one of the most constant things in my life, and I don't know what I ever did to deserve you."

_Got engaged to a sociopathic billionaire obsessed with meteor freaks . . ._

Trying to lighten the mood and steer the conversation away from the uncomfortable turn it had taken, Chloe turned away and went to grab the veil off the hook, "Don't do that. Don't get all sentimental on me. Because the makeup artist left, and I don't think this mascara is waterproof."

She came back over and started to reach up to put the veil in place, but Lana held out a hand to forestall her, "I can't lose you, Chloe."

"Wha-? Who said anything about losing me? You Ms. Lang have lost your mind."

"I know how you feel about Lex. I know you don't like him or trust him. And even though you've been so amazing these past two months about hiding it that sometimes I almost forget that, I know it's not going to last."

"Lana-"

"I just . . . in an hour Lex might be my husband, but you're the only real female friend I've ever had. I don't want to gain one only to lose the other. I need you in my life just as much as Lex . . . maybe more."

Chloe just stared at her friend for a moment, a slow crawl of dread moving over her as she realized . . . Lana was looking for an out, a reason not to do this, for someone to stand up and say, 'I object.'

No matter what she had said, Lana was still waiting for someone to save her.

And despite everything, despite all her certainty that what was about to happen was absolutely wrong for everyone, Chloe knew she couldn't be that person.

The only person who could save Lana was Lana.

It was time someone forced her friend to face that.

So all she said was, "Lana, my issues with Lex are exactly that . . . mine. They don't have anything to do with you, and I promise I won't let them affect our friendship. No matter what happens."

Strangely enough, as she made the promise, she realized she meant it. Lana Lang was possibly the most irritatingly self-absorbed, emotionally needy, neurotic mess she had ever met in her life. But she was also the girl who had lived down the hall from her for year, and who had shared her dorm room for another. Lana had listened late at night while Chloe chattered on journalism classes and bought an espresso machine for the dorm room when Chloe complained about the failure of campus coffee. And in these past two months, Chloe had found that there were moments, flashes, when she got to see that Lana again, and she wasn't ready to give up on her.

After a beat, Lana gave her shaky smile, and a quiet, "Thank you." Then reaching out, she took the veil out of Chloe's hands and turned to the mirror.

So much for Lana saving herself.

Almost as though her thought had been telegraphed across town, her cellphone went off, with the personalized ring tone she had assigned to the exactly last person she wanted to hear from right now. What's more, Lana knew who that ring was for . . .

Clark.

Shit.

Chloe looked over at Lana's reflection in the mirror. She had gone pale and rigid, her face a mask of pain. Chloe shook her head. She was going to kill Clark for calling her this close to the wedding. "I'm sorry. He knows I'm-" she cut herself off and shook her head, "I'll put it on silent."

"Don't."

"Really, it's probably nothing."

"Or he might need you." Something about the way Lana said the words, like she was imagining all the hundreds of nightmare scenarios right along with her, made Chloe reach for the phone and flip it open.

"Hey, what's up?" For Lana's sake, she fought to keep her voice artificially light, like she didn't half expect the apocalypse every time he called.

"Chloe?"

Her heart dropped and suddenly everything else ceased to exist. "Clark, what is it?"

Something was wrong, she could hear it in the way he said her name, tentative and desperate and lost. Like he wasn't sure he really had the right to call her, even though he knew he always did. This wasn't meteor-freak wrong, or apocalypse wrong, this was something far worse, something she couldn't even let her mind touch wrong.

"Chloe, I-" he broke off with a sob. Oh God, he was crying. She'd only seen Clark cry a handful of times and every time he'd been broken in a way she couldn't entirely put back together.

"Clark. Clark, talk to me, where are you, are you at home?"

"Yes."

"Okay, okay. I'm going to be right there. Give me ten minutes and I will be right there."

"I was too late." He said it half to himself. "I thought . . . I was so sure we had the pattern, but . . ."

The pattern, the phantom, god, those kids . . . Chloe felt her own tears threaten to well up, bit the inside of her lip to stay calm. "It's okay. I'm coming over. I will be right there."

She snapped the phone closed and went to grab her keys. It wasn't until she was halfway out the door that she remember Lana.

She turned back to her friend, "Lana, I am so sorry. . ."

But Lana just shook her head, and then to Chloe's horror, she started unpinning her veil. "I want to help. If Clark's hurt, I can't just go on like . . ." she dropped the veil to the floor, "I need to do something to help him."

Chloe tried to think of something, anything, to explain what at this moment felt absolutely inexplicable. How did you tell someone who cared as much as Lana obviously did, that they weren't allowed?

In the end, Lana didn't need the words, she read the message in the silence crystal clear, closed her eyes in resignation.

"He's not really hurt, is he?"

"Not physically, no."

She nodded. "And I can't help, can I? Just you."

Chloe sighed, tried for an explanation she might understand, in the end all she managed was, "You're marrying Lex."

But Lana just shook her head, "And it would still just be you."

Something about the way she said it made it clear . . . Lana knew. On some level, in some part of her, Lana knew, the same way Lex did, the way Chloe had before that night on the road. To know Clark, was to know there was something special about him, something he held back, kept in places you weren't invited. And every time you tried to care, tried to reach out to him and were turned away, it hurt.

Because she could still remember exactly how much, because she knew this moment, more than any other, would push Lana down the aisle. Chloe tried to temper her answer with the only thing she had to offer, "Clark loves you. He has always loved you."

Even as she said it, she knew it wasn't enough. She could hear Jimmy's words in the back of her mind. _Call me old-fashioned but for me being with someone, loving someone, means sharing your life with that person, means letting that person in._

Lana nodded tightly as if coming to a moment of perfect understanding, then queitly, resolutely, she bent down and picked the veil back up, began to re-pin it into place.

"Lana, I-"

She looked at Chloe in the mirror and gave her a tight smile that for the first time in her life said 'don't worry about me', said 'I'll be okay.' She tilted her head to the door, "Go. Clark needs you."

- + - + - + - + - + -

She found him in the barn, sitting off in the shadows, as far away from the light spilling through the open doors as possible, head bent, hands upturned in a posture of contrition. He didn't look up as she stepped onto platform, just continued to stare straight ahead.

"Clark?"

At the sound of her voice, he turned his head towards her, but didn't react beyond that. God, he's in shock, Chloe realized with a jolt.

"Hey," she whispered softly, coming around to kneel in front of him, heedless of the purple satin gown she wore. "Hey, it's me."

Finally after what felt like an eternity, his eyes seemed to focus on her, "Chloe?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me." She reached out and took his hand.

It was wet. Sticky, in a way that felt like . . .

"Clark," she fought to keep her voice calm, "Clark, is this-"

"There was so much blood. I thought I had the pattern, but I was too late, and there was so much . . . and I couldn't do anything!" He slammed his free hand through the floor board beside him, splintering it with a crack that made Chloe nearly jump out of her skin.

"Hey. Listen to me." She grabbed his other hand trying not to react to the fact it too was covered, "It's not your fault. Okay? We will get these things. I promise we will stop them, but this was not your fault."

He looked up at her and even in the shadows she could see he didn't believe her. "I let them out. My father put them in the phantom zone to protect the universe, and I let them out. And I watched a boy die today because of it. If it's not my fault, then whose it? Tell me whose fault it is."

Chloe fought the wave of nausea that washed over her at his words, but she couldn't stop the tears. For Clark, for the little boy who'd senselessly lost his life, for the family that would never understand the evil that had taken their child. For all the answers she didn't have.

"I don't know. I honestly don't. But I know this," she deliberately twined her fingers with his, ignoring the feel of the blood sliding over her skin. "Whatever happened out there, you did everything you could, and because of that that little boy didn't die alone, he had you, Clark. He had you."

"Listen to her, Clark."

Chloe whirled around to see Lana Lang standing at the top of the steps, veil askew, eyes shining.

"Lana?" Clark breathed her name like she might be an apparition.

She nodded, tears running down her face, now. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't be here. But I was with Chloe when she got your phone call, and all I could think about was you hurting, and I couldn't do it, I couldn't walk down the aisle . . ." She gave him a tremulous smile, "I love you. And I don't think that's ever going away."

As if in a trance, Clark got to his feet and started to come towards her. Then all of the sudden he jerked back, fisting his hands closed in shame.

"Don't." Lana moved forward, and reaching out took both his hands in hers. "Don't," she repeated.

"You don't know . . ." he whispered.

Lana shook her head, silencing him. "It doesn't matter. I know you." Slowly, deliberately, she peeled Clark's fingers to reveal his blood-stained hand. Looking up into his eyes, she brought it to her cheek, turning her face into the palm. "I think in a way I've always known you. I've just been too scared to see it."

For a moment Clark just stared at her dumbly, like she was a hallucination, like he couldn't trust that anything good, let alone this, could ever be his again. Then with a harsh, broken sob, he pulled Lana to him like a lifeline.

Chloe watched as they stood there clinging to each other, Lana's tears overcoming her waterproof mascara, the blood on Clark's hands marring the white-silk of her gown. She looked frightened and disheveled and utterly right. Like maybe she'd been waiting all her life to figure out she was strong enough to let someone lean on her.

They didn't notice when Chloe left.

- + - + - + - + -


	19. Chapter 14

- + - + - + - + -

**Chapter 14**

"_Who are you?_"  
"_Someone who's been burned by the opposite sex more times than he cares to admit._"

-- Helen Bryce & Lex Luthor "Visage"

----

Chloe was barely out of the Kent driveway when the phone calls started.

She didn't pick up, didn't even bother to look to see who they were from. It didn't matter, she knew what they were about, and she was done playing social secretary for the evening. When it got to the fifth call in four minutes, she put her cell on silent and tossed it into the back seat.

Upon reaching the road that would either take her into 'downtown' Smallville and home or out of town towards Metropolis, Chloe paused at the stop-sign.

Metropolis beckoned like a siren call, the prospect of simply turning and driving into the city, away from a mess that wasn't hers, appealing beyond all imagining. But she was tired and dirty and wearing a bridesmaid's dress, all in all thoroughly unprepared to run away.

Plus she didn't have anywhere in Metropolis to go anymore.

She had just made the turn back into town, when her phone rang.

It took her a moment to realize what was going on. It wasn't her regular cell. It was her other one. The one Lex had given her.

She grabbed it out of her bag, fully intending to turn it off, when it rang again and she found herself flipping it open instead.

"Where is she?" Lex demanded without preamble, his voice simultaneously pleading and accusatory.

Chloe's throat constricted. Whatever she had thought, whatever she had believed. She hadn't wanted it to play out like this, for reasons she hadn't entirely sorted out and didn't want to think about now. She sighed, "Gone. She's gone, Lex."

"Where?"

The intent, focused question made her tighten her grip on the cell phone as she pulled over to the side of the road.

"Chloe?"

She dropped her head to the steering wheel and shook it. "Why does it matter? Isn't it enough to know she left?"

Of course, it wasn't. She knew that. She, of all people, knew Lex Luthor did not give up on anything without a fight.

"It's Clark, isn't it? He took her."

She gritted her teeth suddenly furious with everyone, with Lex and Clark and the way they fought over Lana like she was a favorite toy, with Lana for liking it, with herself for indulging the entire stupid process. "He didn't take her. She's not a prize to be won or lost. She's a person with her own issues, capable of making her own choices and her own mistakes. And she made this one. So just . . ." She rubbed a hand over her face as the anger the left her just as fast as it had come, and the only thing she felt was incredibly tired, "Just let her go. Please Lex . . . just let go."

She was begging she realized, and she didn't even know who for.

Silence met her plea, and Chloe found herself listening to Lex's ragged breathing and holding her own, as it stretched on for a beat and then another. _Please,_ she thought, _please don't do this._

Then a yell of absolute, inhuman rage and a crash.

"Lex!" She sat bolt upright, barely conscious of the fact she was screaming, "Lex!"

The line was dead.

"Dammit!" She redialed.

No answer.

Tried again.

Nothing.

"Dammit!" She pounded her fist against the steering wheel in frustration, "Dammit, you bastard! Don't do this to me."

If Lex did something . . .

If Lex went after Lana . . .

If he tried to hurt Clark . . .

A hundred scenarios ran through her mind and none of them turned out well for Lex. He had told her more than once she was no use to him damaged and she had hated him for that, for how cold and impersonal it sounded.

But he was no use to her dead. And it didn't feel impersonal at all.

_I guess that makes you my last chance._

Jerking the car into drive, she made a sharp u-turn back on to the road in the other direction. Out of Smallville. Towards the mansion.

Mutually beneficial relationships . . . sucked.

-----

The mansion was still abuzz with people when she got there, but the atmosphere had changed, transformed from the festivity of the morning to something resembling a wake. Caterers packed up uneaten, food. Staff members dismantled tables and spirited away chairs. Flower arrangements which this morning had been happy greeting, now felt funereal.

Nobody paid any attention to her as she wove her way through the quiet chaos. She'd become a fixture around the mansion these past few months.

The realization was unsettling.

----

In the end, she found Lex the first place she looked.

Despite the efficient deconstruction occurring everywhere else, no one had touched the library. Remnants of what hadn't happened were everywhere you looked. Flower arrangements on almost every free surface, a few last minute gifts sitting on the pool table, a bottle of champagne icing in the corner, a tray of food laid out on the side board. Lex had obviously intended to steal a few moments alone with his new bride here before they had to go down and play host and hostess to their guests. Somehow it made everything worse.

Lex himself stood at the window, jacket shed, hands braced on either side of frame, every muscle of his body whipcord taut. A half-empty glass and an un-stoppered decanter sat on the corner of his desk within easy reach.

He didn't turn as she entered.

She wasn't surprised. Music poured from all corners of the room, discordant and aggressive, turned up so loud as to be an assault. Lex wouldn't hear a marine battalion if it decided to invade.

The thought that he might not care made her move towards the stereo, stepping over the shattered pieces of what had apparently been the vase for one of the larger flower arrangements, and—she looked closer—Lex's cell phone.

Typical.

Chloe reached out and hit the power button on the stereo, plunging the room into blessed silence.

Lex didn't so much as look up. "Come to gloat?"

Apparently he had heard her enter, or at least seen her. Or maybe she was just the only person in the world who might even bother. She leaned back against the bookshelf and held up the cell phone she still had clutched in her hand. "I came to make sure you hadn't thrown yourself through a plate glass window."

At that he lifted his head ever so slightly, and she could see the corner of his mouth twitching with the kind of dark amusement you only saw at crime-scenes or war-zones, the kind that occupied places hope had left. "The night is young. Stick around. You might get your wish."  
She shook her head. "You're no use to me dead."

Lex looked over at her at that, and she could almost hear her own voice, so hurt and vulnerable, as she berated him for saying very similar. And that's all that matters, isn't it? What's 'of use' to you?

She gave him a twisted, bitter smile, acknowledging the irony.

Then to her surprise, he dropped his head and laughed. Not with joy, or humor, or anything natural, but a manic full body shudder that felt like something close to a scream.

It was possibly the scariest fucking thing she had ever seen.

Chloe took a step towards him. She didn't have the slightest clue what she was doing, or even why she cared. All she knew was she wanted to make it stop.

"Lex-" Unthinkingly she reached out and rested her hand on the spot between his shoulder blades. "Lex, I didn't want this."

At her touch, he went unnaturally calm, like standing in eye of a hurricane, and she could feel the tremble of his muscles beneath her hand heralding the coming storm. She didn't pull away, just stood there with him at the window, watching as caterers dismantled the tables on the courtyard below.

"Not like this," she added quietly.

Lex flinched beneath her hand, and she felt his muscles bunch and cord.

"Get out."

The words were faraway thunder rolling over the plains, warning of something terrible. And sane people would run, people with something to lose would barricade themselves underground and wait for it to pass.

But there were people who chased storms. Plunged head first into the tempest, for reasons others would never understand. Oh they gave it pretty names—science, knowledge, art—but she always thought those might be the excuses, the things they told other people, that maybe they just did it because they didn't know how not to.

Maybe everyone had something they didn't know how not to do.

With Lex she didn't know how not to fight.

Dropping her hand, she stepped back over to the desk, picked up the half-empty glass, and downed its contents. Lex had turned and she could feel him watching her as she poured another three fingers of scotch, stopped, then poured a little more.

It felt like that kind of night.

Despite his earlier demand, he didn't say anything as she met his eyes and very deliberately stepped out of her heels. He probably hadn't expected anything different. After all, she'd never ceded to a single command without a fight.

Grabbing the tumbler off the desk, she came back over to him, held it out. Lex didn't take it, just looked down at the drink and then back up at her, lifting an eyebrow in challenge. After a beat, she realized what he was waiting for.

Lips quirking in acknowledgement, she took a sip. Offered it again.

He took it.

Maybe demanding she leave was the only way he knew how to ask her to stay.

----

"Well, on the plus side, you won't have to go through the effort of making good on your threat." Lex observed morbidly as he grabbed the tumbler and pushed off the couch, the overly careful way he moved the only indication of just how intoxicated he was.

It took Chloe a moment to catch up. She hadn't had anywhere near what Lex had, but that wasn't saying much and since they'd been sharing a glass, she wasn't exactly sure how it all divided up. As it was, she felt loose and relaxed and it wasn't until Lex moved to idly roll the cue ball along the edge of the pool table, that her mind caught on to what he was talking about.

She'd been so angry with him then, watching the way he moved in on Lana so swiftly, she'd only been able to see a predator catching the scent of a wounded animal, taking advantage of an easy kill. Now she wondered if maybe what she'd taken for sport had been the desperation of the starving.

She lulled her head to the side, "I had some great plans too."

"Pity they proved unnecessary." Lex grabbed one of the cues off the rack, lined up a shot. Straight into the pile of gifts sitting at the other end of the pool table. It hit dead center and the top box toppled to the floor with a thunk.

He frowned obviously less than pleased with the result. Repeated the endeavor. This time there was the rather satisfying sound of something expensive breaking.

It just spurred him on.

Getting up from her chair, Chloe walked over, watching in fascination as Lex proceeded to methodically demolish all of the remaining gifts. Even going so far as to roll the cue ball back down the expanse of green felt so he could take another shot.

Finally, when the pile was decimated and Lex just stood there staring at the space where it had been, Chloe found herself saying, "Jimmy broke up with me."

Lex looked over at her blankly.

"Last Sunday, when I came home. He was standing on my steps with flowers and he broke up with me," she rolled the eight ball back down the table. Lex caught it automatically, rolled it back.

"Lana wrote a note."

Chloe didn't say anything. She'd seen the missive where it still sat on the coffee table. Heartfelt and apologetic despite its obvious haste, but it didn't change the fact of Lana's engagement ring resting beside it, all the message Lex really needed.

"He left the flowers." She rolled the ball back. He didn't catch it this time. Just stood there looking at it. Almost against her will, Chloe found herself continuing. "You know the worst part? I think I'd take him back. If he showed up tomorrow, I think I'd do it all again because it's better than being alone."

The moment she said the words, she wished she wished she hadn't. It was too much like Lana's story, Lana's reasons, and it didn't have a place here. Lex's hands white-knuckled on the edge of the pool-table.

"Do you really think I care?"

"I didn't-"

"Come on Chloe, we both know it's not Jimmy Olsen you're heartbroken over."

Chloe felt like she'd been slapped, squeezed her eyes shut. "You bastard," she hissed, "I was trying-"

"To what? To be nice? Is that why you're here? Because you care?" he mocked, in a way that said he was perfectly certain that wasn't the reason at all.

She wanted to protest, tell him he was wrong, but he wasn't. Not really. She'd come out of frustration and resentment. Stayed out of obstinacy and guilt and avoidance. And if under all of that there was something else that drove her, something kept her here, it was too enigmatic and imperfect and disturbing to be called caring.

"You don't have anywhere else to go, do you?" Chloe snapped her eyes open, to find him pinning her with a look of smug triumph. "Lana's gone back to Clark, and you've been forgotten. The disposable friend."

The words landed like a sucker-punch throwing her for a loop, and she almost spluttered, almost cried, until she saw his eyes. They were wounded and bleeding and absolutely rabid. And she realized, in a sudden flash of insight, that he needed this. Not her pity, not her sympathy. Not her clumsy attempt at empathy with a story that too closely resembled his own. But this . . .

To lash out, to hurt someone as bad as he was hurting. To fight something, because he couldn't fight this.

And she was here. And she supposed in some strange way she owed him. And maybe she'd really come here, maybe she'd taken her off shoes and gotten a little bit drunk, because a part of her had wanted this too. This bare-knuckles emotional brawl that was the closest thing to mourning she could allow herself in the face of Clark's happiness.

She leaned back against the edge of the pool table, "I wasn't the one left at the altar."

Lex pretended to ignore her, but she saw something go alight in his eyes, as he picked up the scotch glass and took a step towards her. "What do you think he's telling her right now? How lonely he was? How empty his life was without her?"

"Maybe she's telling him how she's always loved him, what a horrible mistake she almost made."

Taking another step, he raised the stakes, "This late. Maybe they're not talking at all."

"Maybe," she tilted her head back in defiance refusing to give, "Tell me, is Lana a screamer?" He glared at her, and she smiled at the hit. Pushed it further. "Maybe she just needs the right touch."

"Is that what Clark has?" Lex murmured his voice low and mocking, "The right touch?" He reached out and trailed bottom of the tumbler along the tops of her knuckles. "Did he make you scream?"

Before she knew what she was doing, she'd flipped her hand over and caught the glass, holding him there. "Not once."

It was the right answer. Or maybe the wrong one. She wasn't sure.

But she didn't have time to dissect it, because in one savage, startling movement, Lex had caught hold of her wrist and jerked her forward, crushing her mouth to his.

The kiss was blistering and angry. Tasted like revenge and hatred and heartbreak, and a million other things that had nothing to do with affection. She had to fight just to hold on, not to drown in the storm. And then she couldn't remember why it mattered and she let go, returned it with everything in her, every ounce of loneliness, every rejection and loss.

Her teeth scraped the edge of his lip. His hands fisted in her hair. Glass shattered on the floor and she idly wondered which of them had dropped the scotch. They backed into pool table, the edge slamming hard into the small of her back in a way that was certain to bruise. Not breaking the kiss, Lex hoisted her up and she wrapped a leg around his.

And then they weren't kissing at all.

It didn't stop. Didn't break off. Just transformed, and suddenly Lex's head was buried in her neck, and she was holding on to him like she could keep him together by sheer force of will.

He didn't cry, didn't scream or sob or curse Lana's name. Just stood there, hands tangled in her hair, breath coming in harsh ragged gasps until suddenly, roughly, he jerked away.

Chloe didn't stop him. She had neither the strength or inclination to try. She felt like the room was spinning, felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole to a world where everyone, including herself was absolutely stark raving mad.

It crossed her mind she should be indignant, be hurt, should ask him what the hell that had been all about. But she knew exactly what it had been about, and being hurt implied it mattered in a way she wasn't certain it had, and the only question she couldn't answer was why she'd let it happen.

At least she was moderately drunk. She could always fall back on that.

"Aren't you going to run?"

_Don't go._

Mouth twisting in a sardonic smile, she shook her head, "To where? I don't have anyplace to go, remember?" Lex looked like he was about to say something, but she cut him off with a disaffected shrug, "'Sides," she wiggled her bare toes, "I can't find my shoes."

----

They reached a strange détente after that. Tried not to talk about Clark and Lana, failed miserably . . .

"We need food."

Lex gestured to the sideboard, "Help yourself."

Moving over to the spread, she asked, "Do you want any?"

"No."

Chloe stared down at the food, cold and uneaten, thought about why it was there. Felt her stomach turn.

He looked over as she came to sit back down. "Not hungry?"

"Apparently not."

Lex refilled their glass, clinked it against the edge of the decanter. "To the waste of four hundred Cornish game hens."

She didn't ask, just tilted her head back and stared up at the ceiling. She could remember the first time she ever set foot in the room, how beautiful she thought it was, with its wood-paneling and stained-glass. A library the way it was meant to be. Could remember how she wanted to run her fingers along the spines of the first editions and get lost in the vellum of their pages.  
Now she didn't know how Lex could stand to be here without screaming. Everywhere you turned was the reminder of something horrible—she made a fools bargain with Lionel in this chair, Lex died on this floor, they shot a woman over there . . .

She struggled to her feet.

Lex watched with vague interest. "What now?"

"I think I hate this room. Nothing good ever happens here." She headed for the door.

"So you're running away?"

"You have, what? Seventy-four rooms here, surely there's one place that isn't this awful."

"There isn't."

"Prove it."

----

They stumbled through the halls like after-hours revelers traipsing through deserted city streets. Opening and closing doors at random, wandering in and out of rooms without rhyme or reason as Lex occasionally pointed things out like a morbid tourguide.

The window she was pushed through.

The bathroom where Victoria almost drowned.

His father's study.

The bedroom he shared with Desiree. She was a meteor freak. Tried to kill him.

With Helen. Not a meteor freak. Same outcome.

Chloe pulled him down a side hallway before he could go for the third room. Opened another door at random.

"Okay, what horrible thing happened here?"

He looked around at the blank, impersonal guest room as if he had never seen it. Then, "I don't think anything ever happened here."

"Perfect."

Lex turned to go.

"What are you doing?"

"I think I left the scotch in one of the other rooms."

"No." Chloe moved to stand in the doorway, and put a hand on his chest to forestall. "No more. You need sleep."

He grabbed her wrist. "I'm not paying you to babysit me."

She fisted her hand in his shirt, prepping for a fight. "You're not paying me at all, so tough."

Lex blinked, as if that hadn't occurred to him, then looked down at their hands. Slowly, almost tentatively, his grip on her wrist softened. Then with his other hand he reached out and touched the scar on her shoulder, traced it with the tip of his finger.

It was exact mimic of that first moment in his office, and it was completely different. Almost gentle, almost an apology, as though he was trying to erase the one with the other.

Absently, as if to himself, he whispered, "Why are you here?"

Chloe stared at where her hand rested against his chest and tried to think of an answer.

Why was she here? She was here because he'd called. Because for the first time she could remember Clark didn't need her. Because he'd gotten her to cry, and she wanted a front row seat to his pain. Because she couldn't get that picture out of her head. Because he'd built her a lab and blackmailed her with other people's lives. Because he'd saved her life once. Because he promised to kill her if he couldn't do it again. Because there'd been a time that no longer seemed so long ago when he wouldn't have had to ask this question. When she would have had an answer if he did.

She was here for a hundred reasons and no good reason at all.

"Does it matter?"

"No." He let go of her wrist, "No, I don't suppose it does."

She stepped away from the door. "You left the scotch in Desiree's room."

For a second she thought he might actually go after it. Then, after a beat, he turned moved back towards the bed sat down heavily on the edge. "You should go home."

"Probably," she agreed.

She slept in the chair because he'd asked her to stay.

A hundred and one reasons and no good reason at all.

- + - + - + - + -


	20. Chapter 15

**A/N: **About a month ago, a new writer to the forum, Momdaegmorgan, contacted me and asked me to help beta her stuff for her as she made the headfirst plunge into the world of Chlex. She's a wonderful writer and I eagerly agreed (so look out for her stuff when she posts, which I have no doubt will not be long in coming . . . *looks significantly at Momdaegmorgan*). In what has been a rather ironic twist of fate, I've actually wound up taking great advantage of her skills as a beta and without her, frankly this chapter would still be only half complete. So thank her for the fact its done and readable, and keep in mind all remaining mistakes are mine.

**A/N2:** I've really appreciated everyones continuing comments. It means so much to me, and it keeps me writing.

- + - + - + - + -

**Chapter 15**

_The heart has a way of clouding one's better judgment_  
–- Lex Luthor "Cyborg"

----

Lex was gone when she woke.

Chloe couldn't decide if she was grateful or offended.

Eventually, she settled on relieved.

Last night felt foreign and disconnected, like it had happened to someone else. And maybe in a way it had. The people they'd been last night, those resentful, wounded souls, it wasn't them. Not really, not the them they let anyone see anyway. Least of all each other. It was a moment out of time—unreal, imagined—and it changed . . . remarkably little. A Christmas truce that didn't stop the bloodshed. Today they'd put their armor back on and go back to killing each other by inches.

Hard to do if your opponent was watching. They might see the weak spots.

Gingerly shifting in the chair, she winced as the heavy drumbeat of too much alcohol started an unrelenting tattoo behind her eyes, and the scotch made a slow roll of protest in her stomach. She hadn't been trashed last night, but she definitely hadn't been sober either. Lex had drunk at least twice as much, but with the way his body kicked toxins he'd probably awoken fresh as a fucking daisy.

Bastard.

Carefully she slit her eyes open and glanced around the room. Lex might have left but he hadn't evaporated, traces of him were everywhere she looked—the rumpled duvet, the abandoned shoes, the pain killers and glass of water sitting on the side-table . . .

The sight made her brain skitter to a full-stop and for the first time she had that awful "morning after" feeling—not the regret, or the self-disgust, but the strange, slow sinking reorientation that came with waking to a world you didn't recognize, that had been altered in some fundamental way you hadn't anticipated.

Squeezing her eyes shut tight against the shift, she brought her fingers up to massage her temples. God she felt gross. She could taste last night in her mouth, smell it in her hair, feel the residue of it on her skin.

She wanted a shower in the worst way.

In the end she settled for the painkillers, and heading in to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face.

The plan changed the moment she saw herself in the mirror. She looked like a refuge from some kind of macabre ball—mascara dirty eyes, day old updo. But the worst was her dress, torn slightly at the hem, dirt smudged from where she had knelt across from Clark in the barn. When she glanced down at her hands she could see the stain of blood on the edges of her cuticles.

Lex might not have been focused on those details last night, but he wouldn't miss them in the light of morning. And she wasn't in the right mindset for an interrogation.

She needed a change of clothes.

All it took was turning around. There, on the vanity bench, sat a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt.

Her world tilted on its axis.

Fighting a sharp wave of nausea, she sat down heavily on the bench next to the clothes, leaned her head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. The bathroom was warm, humid, the air redolent with something spicy and expensive. It smelled like Lex, and she realized he must have taken a shower here, must have elected to use this bathroom rather than his own.

And then he'd left her painkillers and a change of clothes. Somehow, she thought, she would have preferred it if he'd just walked out.

The t-shirt was slate gray, free of silk screening, and briefly as she fingered the soft-cotton, Chloe could almost feel Lex's heartbeat under her palm the way it had been last night, a soft questioning thrum.

_Why are you here?_

Chloe looked back over at her reflection in the mirror. Eyes dropping to the scar on her shoulder, she reached up to trace the tiny, twisted momento of Lex's sins with the tip of her index finger.

She still didn't have an answer.

Watching her reflection, she reached up and began to take down her hair, methodically unpinning the sticky, hairsprayed curls so that they fell down around her shoulders, just brushing the scar but not hiding it completely. Finally, with a slow, resolute breath, she stood and began to undress.

The shower was still damp, and she trailed her fingers through the drops of water, trying not to think about Lex standing naked under the same spray, failing to think of anything else. It wasn't the sexuality of the image that disturbed her, so much as the intimacy, the thought of him doing something so mundane, so everyday. Of him washing away last night with the same tiny bottles of expensive toiletries she'd found lined on the shelf like a hotel room.

It smelled like him—sandalwood, bergamot, and black pepper—rich, and luxurious with a bite of something sharp, unexpected. And even though she tended towards bright citruses that spoke of sunshine and new days, she kind of liked the change.

----

As she toweled off, Chloe thought about just leaving. About slipping away with the dawn and sparing them both that moment of reality, of lies returning. Of her standing there in borrowed clothes and pretending the maid had left them.

But her shoes were under his desk and her keys were god knew where, and Lex had had enough of people leaving without goodbye to last a lifetime.

So when she finished dressing, Chloe padded barefoot down the hallway towards the library, knowing Lex would be there despite everything that had happened. He wasn't the type to cede ground, even when he should.

She got a little lost along the way—at least that's what she would have told the staff if asked—so that she wound up approaching the room from the side-door, just in time to catch the absolute last voice she wanted to hear right now.

"Really, an eight thousand dollar crystal vase seems excessively self-indulgent, even for you, Lex."

"Says the man who moved a castle to the middle of Smallville just because he could."

"And I built something. That is the mark of greatness, to rise above your adversity and create. But this predilection of yours towards destruction at every turn, is that to be your legacy?"

"As always, your parental concern is overwhelming, dad."

Chloe stood frozen with her hand on the door. She needed to back away, needed to move. It was bad enough she was in the mansion, but being this close with Lionel around was courting disaster. Still she couldn't make herself do it. And as she shifted slightly so that she could see through the partly open door, she told herself it was because the opportunity to watch the two Luthors unobserved was just too good to pass up. Not because leaving Lex alone with his father right now felt frighteningly close to abandonment.

Lex stood in front of his desk, and she could see the tension radiating off of him, the taut line of his muscles through the lightweight blue sweater he wore. She couldn't see the elder Luthor, but she had little doubt he saw it too.

Sure enough, Lionel tsked softly, as if deeply hurt. "Now, don't be like that. I came here this morning because I am concerned. To have such a personal blow happen so publicly? It can be devastating, drive a man over the edge. And with your unfortunate history in this area, well I'd be remiss in my duties if I wasn't concerned."

While Chloe had to stifle an exclamation of outrage at Lionel's less than subtle insinuation that recent events put his son's sanity in jeopardy, Lex's expression barely flickered.

"Aaah, well as long as it's just about business, my world view can remain intact. Don't worry Dad, if your portfolio starts to slip, I'll be all too happy to buy you out."

"Is that what you think this is about? Business?" Lionel came forward, mouth turned down in a disappointed frown. "You're my son, Lex. My only worry is for you. You think I don't know how deeply Ms. Lang's abandonment has hurt you. To stake your hopes of salvation, however ill-conceived, on one person so completely and be turned away?"

He reached out to clasp Lex's face, but the younger man slapped his hands away. Still Lionel continued, "Don't you see, I understand you better than anyone. I know that your pride is crying for revenge, but you must fight it. That darkness cost you Lana's love, and now you must guard against allowing it to drag you further down this path you seem so determined to tread."

"And who put up the road signs for me to follow?"

"Whatever my mistakes, you have long since turned far afield. It is this relentless tendency towards obsession, to become consumed by your pursuits regardless of the cost that will be your undoing. Even this marriage . . . Oh you wrapped it up in pretty words like love and salvation, but truly at the end of the day it was little more than a manifestation of your endless, delusional pursuit of revenge against a farm boy who has done you no harm."

Lex turned away and faced his desk, "Spare me the pop psychology, Dad. You've never tried to know me, don't presume you do now."

"Then enlighten me, Lex. Explain to me how you've only recently lost the great love of your life and yet, if my memory of Lana's chosen wedding colors is correct, those are Ms. Sullivan's shoes under your desk."

Lex's hands tightened on the edge of the desk, but he didn't say anything. For her part, Chloe felt her earlier nausea reassert itself with a vengeance and she had to fight not to make a noise as Lionel came to stand beside Lex and placed a photograph on the desk.

"Did you really think that changing the location of your assignations would divert me?"

Another photograph.

"It's not that I disapprove of your choice, son. After all, I, better than anyone, know how intriguing she can be."

A third.

Lex stared down at it, features a tight and unreadable mask that Chloe couldn't help but feel hid something terrible beneath it. But Lionel didn't see it, and he pressed on.

"But really, the girlfriend wasn't enough? You needed the best friend, too? This sick need to play with Clark Kent's toys-"

He didn't get to finish.

In an explosion of vicious movement, Lex turned suddenly and seized Lionel by the throat, backing him into the bookcase so hard a ceramic bowl fell off and crashed to the floor.

Positioning his face close to Lionel's, he began to speak in a low, calm voice that made Chloe's skin crawl.

"Tell me Dad? All those times you practiced this soliloquy in front of the mirror, did it ever occur to you to wonder . . . if it's true, if I've already lost myself to obsession and revenge, if Lana left me because of this darkness you're sure I've succumbed to, where does that leave you?" He tightened his grip, "Remind me again, how old were you when you killed my grandparents?"

Lionel's hands flew up to scrabble at his son's grip on his throat, his eyes almost wild with something Chloe realized might be real fear, but Lex seemingly past all reach, continued his taunt, "Lana's gone and there's nothing to keep me from following in those Luthor footsteps now, right? Come on Dad. Be proud."

Chloe took a half step forward desperate to do something, uncertain as to what, but then Lionel's eyes locked on hers, and she froze.

"Chloe-" he rasped.

Lex laughed, actually laughed, a short staccato of derisive mirth that made Chloe's blood run cold. "You think she'll stop me? Think she'll mourn? After everything you've down to her, all you've put her through, do you really think she wouldn't just request a front row seat and spit on your body afterwards?" Leaning in close he added in a whisper, "Care to bet your life on it?"

"Ask-" Lionel started then gasped and tried again, "Ask her."

"Lex-"

She didn't even realize she'd spoken until Lex spun around in surprise, releasing Lionel as he did so. The elder Luthor slid to the floor, still gasping in recovery, but there was something triumphant in his eyes and something haunted in Lex's, that made Chloe say her next words without thinking.

"You didn't have to stop on my account."

She'd said it because she didn't want to give Lionel the satisfaction of being proven right, but at her words something uncoiled in Lex's stance, and she realized that on some level, he'd believed what his father had said. That he'd driven Lana away. That he'd always lose everyone in the end.

And maybe he hadn't asked to keep her, and maybe she didn't want to be kept, but right now that seemed less important than letting him know he still had her.

Her eyes found his and for a moment, an imagined, split-second something passed between them. She couldn't name it, couldn't give it contours or shape, but it was there—vibrant and crackling and alive. And then it was gone, and they were locked together in the silent, clinical communication of practiced, but wary allies making rapid fire calculations and rational decisions.

Before they could come to an agreement, Lionel hauled himself up from the floor, with a cough that drew their attention. "Well, this visit has been quite . . . enlightening." He brushed at his cuffs, attempting to appear unfazed by the encounter, but unable to mask the slight tremble of his hands. "But as my concern is obviously both unwelcome and unnecessary," he slid his gaze to Chloe at the last word, thinned his lips in a knowing smile, "I won't extend the encounter any longer."

Lex didn't move as his father picked up his coat from the chair and headed for the door, but just before he reached it, Lex spoke, "Dad?"

Lionel turned, not quite masking his surprise at the soft, almost apologetic tone. "Yes, son?"

"Don't come here again."

Something went out in Lionel's eyes, hardened in his face, and it was only as Chloe watched it die, watched it draw its last gasping breath, that she was able to recognize the mangled thing for what it was . . .

Hope.

She didn't even know what to do with that.

For his part, Lionel just pulled on his coat and opened the door. Pausing there, he turned back to look at her, "Remember what we talked about Ms. Sullivan. You may have elected to disregard my warnings, but certainly after this morning you should have no doubt as to their validity."

And then he was gone.

----

Chloe slumped against the desk for support, releasing a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She felt disoriented, adrift in the wake of a storm she hadn't seen coming.

Lex had moved across the room to close the door behind his father, and now just stood there, head bent, palm resting on the glass.

Neither one of them said anything for a long time. She brushed one of the photographs Lionel had left with the tips of her fingers and glanced down at it, somehow unsurprised to be faced with the same image he had shown her not a week before.

Absently she reached out and touched it.

"You forgot to close the blinds."

She looked over at Lex, turned now, watching her from afar, gauging her reaction, wary and guarded, as if afraid that she would blame the image on him. She'd toyed with the idea, turned the possibility over in her mind that he'd deliberately taken advantage of her indiscretion to create a set of images that would be so much harder to explain to Clark. But after everything, after Lana . . . she just didn't believe it.

Looking back down at where her fingers rested against the stark black and white curve of his neck, she murmured, "So did you."

"We've handled this poorly."

That was the understatement of the fucking millennium. Chloe swallowed down a laugh that felt suspiciously like a sob, and asked, "What do you think he's going to do?"

Lex stayed silent for a long time, then, "I don't know."

"Can't you hazard a guess?"

"It depends."

"On what?" she asked the question, even as she somehow already suspected the answer.

"On his evaluation of the board. A lot of pieces have moved in the past twenty-four hours."

More specifically one particular piece had moved—Lana, the White Queen. And it changed the entire damn game. She almost thought she could see it the way Lex must, laid out before her, abstract and separate from her own pain. Lana had shifted, and in doing so had supplanted Chloe in a way Lionel may not have anticipated.

Lex came over and slipped the photographs out from under her hand, the tips of his fingers brushing hers as he did so. Briefly she flashed to the way they'd felt against her shoulder last night, and suddenly she wondered if his use of the plural hadn't been inadvertent.

At the thought, she jerked her hand away as if Lex had burned her, and pushed off the desk, blindly stumbling towards the middle of the room.

"I don't suppose you want to tell me what you talked about during the conversation my father mentioned," Lex called after her, voice calm and unaffected, as if he hadn't noticed her reaction.

She did. She did want to tell him, and the thought scared her more than anything.

_Don't be fooled by my son, my dear. Whatever gestures of chivalry he may make, whatever he has told you, whatever control you think you have, sooner or later he will betray you. It is, quite simply, Lex's nature._

Chloe turned and looked at him, working to keep her eyes flat, face impassive, "It was nothing I didn't already know."

Lex scanned her features as if searching for something, some way in. After a beat, he jerked his head away, and when he looked back up it was with the cool calculation she'd come to expect, even rely upon. And she knew, knew they were going to go back to being the people they'd been a week ago, back to bargains and blackmail and the safety of distrust.

The fact that she'd been the one to press the reset button didn't stop her from feeling ill.

Lex reached into his desk drawer and set her car keys on polished surface, kicked her shoes out from under the chair. "I almost have everything in place we'll need to fake my father's interest in Martha Kent. I'll see the rest is completed as soon as possible and contact you. Hopefully it will be in time."

She tried to think of something, anything to say that would stop this slow reverse, but her mouth refused to form the words. Instead she just picked up her shoes, grabbed her keys off the desk, and turned to go.

"I still need a choice." The words drew her up short like a choke-collar, and Lex continued, "I'm prepared to start again as soon as you are, but I'm waiting on your selection. Give it to me and you'll have an address within twenty-four hours."

Chloe dropped her head and closed her eyes, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid for everything she'd been thinking. They weren't going back. They'd never gone forward. This was who they were to each other, an unfortunate means to a necessary end.

She'd been right the first time. Last night changed nothing.

Not looking at him, she responded, "Subject two-forty-six."

_Twenty-five year old African-American male. Low-scale telekinesis with apparent range of three feet, twenty five pounds. Suffers from paranoia and agoraphobia. Now managed by medication._

The moment she said it, she wanted to change her mind, pick someone else.

Instead, she walked out.

----

Chloe went through the rest of the day on autopilot. Tried to write, tried to study, tried to do anything other than think about Lex, about Lionel, about Clark and Lana. She even thought about Jimmy for awhile, just because it had somehow become the least painful, most rational part of her entire week.

In the end she wound up succumbing to the dulling effects of ice-cream and mindless tv. Chloe Sullivan, walking cliché.

She liked the normality.

Her body felt lethargic and overwhelmingly tired by everything, by a complicated morass of emotions she couldn't sort out. But she refused to go to bed. She'd never been all that good at falling asleep prior to midnight, even when her previous nights adventures dictated it as the wisest course of action, so she'd expected to just lie there, eyes closed, thoughts being continuously redirected to some place other than where they wanted to go. Which is why she felt more than a little disoriented when she awoke on the couch, to find the room barely pink with a new dawn.

Blearily she slit one eye open to glance at the clock on the cable box. Six forty-five.

Damn, this was the second night in a row she'd slept on something that wasn't a bed. Her body was going to make her pay for it in spades.

There was a tap on her door.

Chloe blinked, tried to process the idea that she hadn't awoken naturally, that someone was actually knocking on her door at this ungodly hour.

There it was again. A little more insistent this time.

Realizing Lois must have forgotten her key, she groaned and got up from the couch. Padding over to the door, she worked to devise an appropriate punishment for her cousin. Something painful. Probably involving an excess of chores.

It wasn't Lois.

Wasn't even close.

Lana Lang stood in her doorway, hair pulled up in a baseball cap, face free of makeup, holding a newspaper in front of her like a shield. Chloe's eyes locked on to the headline and her heart plummeted.

_LEX LUTHOR COVERS HEARTBREAK WITH NIGHT OF PASSION_

Below it were two images. A crystal clear shot of Lex standing stonefaced in his tuxedo, and a far more grainy, but still recognizable one of herself coming out of the mansion yesterday.

"Want to talk about your issues with Lex, now?"

- + - + - + - + -


	21. Chapter 16

**A/N:** This Chapter was supposed to be posted last night but the site is having technical issues with uploading documents. I think I figured out the workaround by cutting and pasting, but if there are still formating problems I apologize.

* * *

_Sometimes people do things that you don't expect and you don't understand, and sometimes they have a really good reason for it._

-- Chloe Sullivan "Noir"

_----_

_"Want to talk about your issues with Lex, now?"_

In her mind she said no. In her mind she shut the door in Lana's face and went back to bed. In some deep petulant recess she even told Lana off before doing it, took her friend to task for leaving her to clean up the mess and having the audacity to ask about it later_._

What she actually did was just stand there dumbstruck, as her sleep-addled brain scrambled to process exactly what the hell was going on.

Lowering the paper, Lana sighed, "I'm sorry. The whole way over here I tried to think of the best way to do this. I swear that hadn't been what I'd meant to say."

Chloe didn't respond, unconsciously falling back on Lex's habit of maintaining silence until he had a better handle on the landscape. Right now her landscape felt like quicksand.

Her first thought was Lionel had pulled the trigger, had gone home and nursed his wounds and called reporters in a fit of pique. Except . . . it was so ham-fisted. He had a dozen photographs of them together and he went for a grainy one of her coming out of the mansion? Went for public embarrassment when a private word of concern to Clark would paint him in a better light? Used a club when he had a scalpel?

That wasn't Lionel. Even angry, even hurt, this lacked elegance and subtlety and most importantly, it lacked _control_. Which meant it was probably an actual tabloid photo, a patient photographer squeezing one last payday out of the end of Lex's all too public courtship of Lana.

Which meant she and Lex had just played a bad hand . . . extraordinarily poorly.

The realization made her irritable and wary and desperate for a little time to figure out how to handle things.

Unfortunately, she'd apparently already taken too much time, as Lana shifted uncomfortably and finally asked, "Can I come in?"

Because she couldn't figure out a way to get out of this that wouldn't result in Clark appearing on her doorstep in three minutes flat, Chloe just stepped aside and pulled the door open.

Lana crossed the threshold gingerly, as if half expecting something to jump out at her. Still there was an undercurrent to her movements, a quiet resolve that told Chloe, whatever the other girl had come here intending to say . . . she wasn't leaving until she did.

Still for all her new-found determination, Lana seemed to find herself at a little bit of a loss once she was actually inside. Setting the paper on the table, she rubbed her hand along the edge of the crease. Glancing idly around the room, her eyes fell on the couch where a crumpled afghan and the slowly congealing remnants of a pint of ice-cream left little doubt to how Chloe had spent her night.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up."

Chloe just sighed, didn't move from her position by the door, "Yeah, well, you obviously thought you needed to."

Lana didn't seem to register that, instead continuing to barrel head on, "I still get up at six most mornings. I think it's a holdover from having to open the Talon. I didn't think about how early it was for normal people. Clark's never been a morning person anyway and of course Lex gets up even earlier than me if he ever goes to sleep-"

Her words skittered to a sudden halt as her mind apparently caught up to what she was saying, and she tightened her hands on the top of the chair by the kitchen table.

Chloe officially didn't have time for this. "Lana, why are you here?"

"I thought that was kind of obvious."

Deciding to go with blatant deflection, Chloe shrugged, "If you're looking for an explanation, I don't have one. I don't know what makes the society page reporters take old photographs and create stories out of thin air. They don't exactly have the same ethics the rest of us do. I would think after all your run-ins with Linda Lake you'd be used to it."

Lana nodded thoughtfully, then, "Except what Linda Lake reported about me and Lex, that was true."

"So what? Because it's in the paper, suddenly you think I slept with Lex, that I-" she stalked over to the table and picked up the paper, began to read an excerpt, "'consoled Lex Luthor in his hour of need . . .'"

"Did you?"

"Oh, for the love of-" Chloe dropped the paper back down on the table, and glared "No, I didn't sleep with him. And you know what? I'm not really sure what business it is of yours, either way. You left him at the altar, without so much as a goodbye. You left him a _note_."

Lana flinched. Then quietly, with a pointedness that set off warning bells, looked over and asked, "He showed you?"

As soon as Lana said it, Chloe realized her mistake. There was no way, no reason for her to know that, unless she had gone back to the mansion. Unless she had seen Lex, and she didn't have a single good explanation for why she'd done that.

Pressing her lips together, Lana sat down heavily in the chair, and put her hand over the newspaper. "They didn't make it up, did they?"

"I didn't sleep with him."

Lana shook her head as if that part were trivial, uninteresting. "No, I mean the rest of it. That you went over there, that you stayed with him. They didn't make that part up."

Chloe slid into the other chair, and carefully spread her hands out on the table, like they might give her the answers, might provide her with a roadmap through the minefield she had just maneuvered herself into. On the one hand there was a part of her that was still livid with Lana for acting like she had any right to this, that wanted to just tell the girl it wasn't her business, that she'd ceded the right to know anything the moment she left Lex. But the problem was she wasn't just talking to Lana right now. She was talking to Clark through Lana, and what she said, how she said it, had the potential to change everything.

But before she had a chance to decide exactly how to respond, Lana said something that rocked her world.

"How is he doing?"

Chloe's head snapped up to stare at the other girl incredulously.

"Lex-" Lana clarified, as if they both didn't know exactly who she'd been talking about, "How is he?"

Chloe laughed. Not much, just a snort of derision, but she couldn't help herself. The memory of Lex standing at that window about to break, of his lips on hers like punishment, of that look in his eyes begging her to stay every time he told her to go, leapt up fresh and raw and painful. And before she thought better of it, she muttered, "How do you think?"

Lana swallowed hard. "I never meant to hurt him."

"Lana-"

"I know that's not an excuse or an explanation, but I wanted him to know-"

"Stop. Okay, just stop it." Chloe snapped, getting up from the table on a sudden wave of inexplicable anger. She was pissed to be once again put in the middle, playing messenger and caretaker for a man hurt by Lana's absence. And she was pissed on Lex's behalf because for every horrible retribution he might deserve, he also deserved to have these words said to his face. And she was pissed she cared about that one way or the other.

But mostly, more than anything else, she was pissed that Lana acted like Chloe was exactly the person she had to explain herself to, like Chloe was entitled to that explanation on Lex's behalf, and Lana was _fucking_ fine with that. And what the hell? Because Chloe sure wasn't fine with the concept at all

"Lana. I. Don't. Care." She emphasized each word individually, carving it carefully with her tongue as if the precision of the statement could somehow ensure its accuracy. "I don't care if any part of you loved him or if you didn't. And I don't care if he spends the rest of his life pining after you or if he forgets you tomorrow. Don't explain yourself to me. I'm not going to carry messages for you. Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it doesn't affect me either way. Lex and I? We're not friends. We don't like each other. We just-"

"You just what?" Lana asked, voice devoid of any insinuation or recrimination, only a desperate need to understand.

_We just need each other_, Chloe's mind supplied automatically. She clamped her lips tight to keep it from spilling out unbidden, refusing to make the thought real with her voice.

Shaking her head, she pushed away from the table and moved over to the kitchen, desperate for a distraction, for anything to do other than have this conversation and be asked for answers she didn't have.

Lana followed her, undeterred. "Chloe? What's going on?"

Deliberately ignoring the question, she took down two mugs from one of the upper cabinets, set them out beside the coffee maker, only realizing a split second later that she'd never bought fresh beans. Living above the Talon had spoiled her.

"Chloe?" Lana pressed again.

Sighing, she braced her hands on the edge of the counter, looked out the window onto the alley. "Nothing. There is absolutely nothing going on."

Silence. Then, "The kind of nothing that involves Lex?"

There was a knowing note in her voice that made Chloe think about how many times Lana must have heard that exact reassurance out of Lex's mouth, out of Clark's, even her own. How many times had Lana learned nothing always meant something? For a moment, Chloe thought about protesting harder, but she was just so damn tired of hiding, of pretending everything was perfectly fine, and Lana wouldn't believe the lie anyway. So instead she nodded slowly in confirmation. "The kind of nothing that involves Lex."

Lana came up and touched her on the wrist. "Has he-? I mean, does he-?"

She was obviously having trouble completing the thought, and Chloe wondered what that must be like, to have cared for someone the way Lana did for Lex, to have almost married them, and yet live with the constant suspicion that they were capable of something so horrible you couldn't even make yourself give it a name.

Chloe gave an abrupt shake of her head. She didn't want Lana pitying her or thinking she needed to be saved. "No. I am not a victim here."

The words came out a little too emphatic, a little too insistent, and Lana put a hand over hers. She fisted her hands at the contact, but Lana didn't pull away, just stood there waiting until finally, almost of its own accord Chloe's hand uncurled and grabbed onto Lana's.

"I wish you trusted me enough to tell me what's going on." Lana whispered, and Chloe tilted her head up to give her a sidelong glance and a bitter smile.

"Believe me when I tell you, none of this has anything to do with trust. It's just . . . it's better if you don't know."

"I don't need to be protected."

"But I do." Chloe said flatly, "And you not knowing? That's part of it."

Lana seemed to absorb that, and as she did so, an appalled look crept over her face and she pulled her hand back. "So I'm what? Part of the deal? Lex didn't want me to know about, whatever it is you still won't tell me, and you just agreed? You were going to let me marry him!"

"It wasn't like that."

"Then what? What was it like? How do I fit in?"

"You don't!"

The words reverberated in the room, drowning out everything, leaving only silence in its wake. Chloe slumped against the counter pressed the heels of her hands to her eyelids, shook her head. "You just don't, okay? You weren't a bargaining piece or a negotiation point, you were-" she groped for a word, "off-limits. He loves you and you're my friend and you were off-limits."

"But you were going to let me marry him."

"I wasn't _letting_ you do anything!" Chloe shot back and then fixed Lana with a scornful look, "Lana, look at me and tell me honestly, the worst thing you really think I'd keep from you, the worst thing you've ever imagined Lex capable of . . . tell me when you said yes to him, when you got ready to walk down the aisle on Saturday, that there wasn't a part of you that already suspected."

As if someone had opened a release valve on her indignation and it was slowly seeping away, Lana lowered herself onto the chair by the table, glanced down at the picture of Lex that stared up at her from the newspaper. Then she turned back to look at Chloe something half-defiant, half-apologetic in her gaze. "It's not the same as knowing."

No it wasn't. Chloe knew that better than anyone. Still she refused to concede the point.

"Would it have made a difference? I mean, you'd already apparently decided you could live with the possibility. If Clark didn't exist, if it was just you and Lex and you knew rather than just suspected . . . would it have mattered?" She was pressing hard now, maybe trying to appease a little of her guilt by backing Lana into the justification she'd given herself a hundred times over.

Lana was silent for a long time, then, "I thought I could change him."

The words sounded incredibly naïve to Chloe's ears. You didn't change someone like Lex. He was elemental, a force of nature, terrible and destructive and magnificent. And the best you could hope to do, the _only_ thing you could hope for was to protect yourself, to batten down the hatches and keep your loved ones safe, and pray it passed you by.

_But there are people who chase storms . . ._

Yes there were. People who challenged the elements head on because they had to, because they didn't have anything to lose, because it made them feel ferociously alive. But they never changed them. To think otherwise was madness or arrogance or both.

Oblivious to Chloe's thoughts, Lana touched her fingertips to the picture of Lex in the paper and continued, "I told his father once that loving Lex meant protecting him from himself. And I did love him. At least I want to believe I did."

Sensing Lana needed to continue, and grateful that they'd moved away from accusations of fault, Chloe walked over and sat back down, took Lana's hand in both of hers.

"He used to talk to me. Used to tell me what he was doing and Chloe, it was amazing. He talked about things that would literally change the world," her voice had gone soft, almost wistful, then she seemed to snap out of it, and added bitterly, "But he can't stop, doesn't want to stop, and the more I tried to do it for him the less he let me in. Until, one day, I just quit trying."

"But you stayed with him."

"Have you ever tried to tell Lex no when he really wants something?" she asked, catching Chloe's gaze with her own, searching it for an answer that she apparently found all too easily, because after a moment her mouth tightened in a sardonic smile that was somehow all the uglier for being on a face that seemed so ill-equipped for the expression. "How did that go?"

Chloe thought of people with numbers instead of names and installment plans and signing her own death warrant and didn't answer.

"Lex doesn't let go," Lana whispered, "I don't think he knows how. And I think more than anything, after all the times Clark pushed me away and told me it was to protect me, after he just let me go without a fight . . . I think I loved Lex for that. But that doesn't mean it didn't scare me."

She kept looking at Chloe, steady and quiet and full of regret. And Chloe realized that despite her protests of indifference, that Lana didn't have to explain herself, Lana was doing exactly that. Was explaining her choices of both the last few days and maybe the whole last year, not just to Chloe, but to herself as well.

"I'm not a brave person." Lana continued, "I want to be. I try to be. Try to pretend that I'm strong and fearless, and hope that one day when it really counts, it will be true."

Chloe dropped her head and sighed, trying to figure out how, after determining she absolutely would not be Lana's confessor, she'd wound up being just that. And the worst part was . . . she got it. She totally got it.

Because Lana was right, Lex wouldn't have let go, would have pleaded and persuaded and maybe even won and then where would they be? Because maybe he wouldn't have pleaded or persuaded at all, but he wouldn't have just let Lana go either. Because maybe what Lana did was the most cowardly and spineless way, but it might also have been the only way they could all make it through the aftermath.

Minimal damage and acceptable losses and the survivable option over the right one.

Because that sounded so much like him that if she could figure out a way to write Lex a note, and run away and hide behind Clark and live with herself? She'd do it tomorrow.

"Sometimes being brave isn't that great," she muttered, "sometimes it just means your mistakes are bigger."

Lana tightened her grip on Chloe's hands in sympathy. "Is that what's happening with Lex? A mistake?"

"Maybe. Probably. I don't know." Freeing one hand, Chloe scrubbed at her face.

"And if it's not?"

Chloe blinked, momentarily thrown by the question. In truth she'd never really let herself wholly consider it. She'd been so focused on protecting herself against the downsides, the pitfalls, on planning for the worst, that she'd never bothered to hope for the best. And so for the first time she did, allowed herself the luxury of picturing what would happen if everything worked out, if Lex kept his word, if they actually succeeded in finding a way to block her, to block all meteor infecteds from developing, maybe even to strip an active one? If Lex used it the right way instead of the wrong one?

God . . .

"It would change the world," Chloe whispered.

Something ironic and regretful and terrified flashed across Lana's face, and she broke eye contact. Staring down at their hands, still clasped over the newspaper's shot of Lex, she swallowed. "I think I actually would have preferred it if you were just sleeping with him."

_Me too_, Chloe thought, but didn't say it.

Then slowly, deliberately, Lana withdrew her hands, and looked up. "Clark doesn't know about any of this, does he?"

She'd caught Chloe's gaze as she said it and it was like looking into the face of a stranger, a different person wearing Lana's skin, her features resolute, her eyes challenging, fierce and unafraid in a way that only came from one thing . . . the need to protect something that mattered more than yourself. It was _her_ face, Chloe realized with a jolt, the one she'd always worn for Clark, that she'd selfishly hoped she'd be the only one to ever wear for him. Seeing it on Lana almost made her ill.

"Don't do that," she hissed, suddenly choking on every breath, "Don't you dare look at me like you need to protect Clark. Not from me."

Lana faltered, "Chloe-"

"No!" she slammed her hands down on the table, "No. Don't Chloe, me. You don't know anything. You think that because you love him and he loves you that gives you some kind of right? Try loving him and knowing, _knowing_ he will never . . ." she cut herself off. Sucking in a shaky breath, she regained a little control, stared Lana down. "Everything I do. Everything I have _ever_ done has been to protect Clark. So you don't get to come to my apartment and sit at my table and look at me like that."

She had stood at some point without realizing it, and she was towering over Lana now, hands braced on the table, body vibrating in outrage. The other girl looked up at her from where she sat, frozen in surprise.

This was it, Chloe thought, this was her Rubicon. She'd let Lana see too much, see all of it, and Lana was going to run. Lana was going to do . . . _exactly _what she should, exactly what anyone should do upon discovering their loved one's friend was consorting with the enemy and wouldn't even explain themselves. She would tell Clark, would warn him away, and Chloe would lose everything.

"Okay," Lana nodded slowly, said it again, "Okay."

Chloe just stared at her blankly. "What?"

"Okay, I believe you." She stood up from the table and walked over to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water, explaining as she went. "I had to ask. _You _would have asked. I mean that's part of it, isn't it? Loving Clark? You force yourself to do things you wouldn't, try to be stronger, tougher, than you are, for him?"

She'd turned back around to look at Chloe, face an open question, and with a jolt Chloe realized Lana meant it. She had put the loyalty question out there because it was exactly what Chloe would have done, what she'd done a dozen times over—confronting someone who could pose a threat to Clark, sizing them up without Clark knowing, without his heart and his implicit need to trust everyone getting in the way. The idea of Lana trying to pattern her actions after Chloe's own, like she had some kind of manual on the proper way to love an alien superhero, left her with a strange pit in her gut. A feeling of emptiness and loss that she didn't entirely like or understand.

"Yeah-" Chloe licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. "Yeah, that's part of it."

Lana finished her water and set it down on the counter. "So what do we tell him?"

"I'm sorry?"

"About the article? What do we tell Clark that isn't going to have him knocking down the door to Lex's mansion?"

"Lana . . ." she drew out the name on an exhale. Here it was, everything she wanted, everything she needed, handed to her on a silver platter, and to her horror Chloe found she couldn't take it. She shook her head in rejection. "Lana, I can't ask you to lie to Clark for me."

"I'm not. I'm doing it for Clark. I'm doing it because he needs you. Because I'm terrified. I am absolutely terrified, Chloe, and I barely know how to be who he needs me to be. I can't be you for him, too." Lana swiped angrily at the start of tears, then blew out a long breath and added, "And I'm doing it for me. Because I just found him again, and I can't lose him. Not now."

"Lose him? Lana, that's crazy-"

"No, it's not. You think I don't know that the real reason Clark wouldn't let me go wasn't because he didn't want me to move on, but because he didn't want me to move on with Lex? I do. Sometimes I'm not sure that wasn't half the reason I wound up with Lex in the first place, because I thought it might make Clark fight for me." She gave Chloe another one of those foreign sardonic smiles, "And it would be the same with you. Whatever you think Clark does or doesn't feel, when it comes to the two of them, I don't think it's really about us at all."

"Sometimes it is." Chloe protested, thinking about Lex's hand on Lionel's throat, about Clark's face as he held Lana in his arms.

"Would you think less of me if I'm not willing to risk it?"

What could she say? She needed the out, and there Lana was a mess of fear and insecurity and love, begging her to take it.

"No, I wouldn't think less of you at all."

"So we need a story."

"We need a story."

---

They batted around a few ideas before Lana came up with the winner.

"Could you get Lex to send you some of my things?"

Chloe thought about it and shrugged. "If I told him it would keep Clark away? Probably. Why?"

"I was thinking. What if I just told Clark you went to the mansion to collect some things for me, so I wouldn't have to see Lex?"

Chloe frowned down at the picture of her coming out of the mansion—oversized t-shirt, yoga pants, makeup free. "I'd never go see Lex looking like that."

"Well, _I _know that." Lana said in a way that made it patently obvious that from the moment she'd shown-up on the doorstep Chloe hadn't had a chance in hell of bluffing her way out of anything. "But Clark is a guy."

There was a simple elegance to the logic of it. Well, that, the strategic use of the mysteries of femininity, and the blatant confidence of being able to sell even the most absurd story to a guy wrapped around your little finger. Which meant they probably weren't going to come up with anything better.

"Yeah, okay, that will probably work." Just under her breath she added, "At least for a little while."

Lana caught it. "Why just a little while? It's not like there's anything else . . ." She trailed off. "Oh Chloe, what else is there?"

Wincing, Chloe rubbed at her temples, thought for a beat, and then decided, what the hell? In for a penny, in for a pound, and a preemptive disclosure certainly had more chance of keeping Lana's support than letting Lionel spring it all on her. "Lionel has . . . other information that would be a lot harder to explain."

"He knows about what you and Lex are doing?"

"No," she sighed, "He thinks I'm sleeping with Lex, too."

Lana actually reddened a little at that, still she remained resolute. "So what does he have?"

"Phone logs, times and places we met, photographs. I don't think there's much in Lex's life he doesn't try to track."

"No, there's not." Something cold and angry flashed in her eyes, and Chloe wondered if Lana had had her own runs-ins with Lionel in the past year. "What do you think he's going to do with it?"

"Threaten me with it for as long as possible, so that I'll keep my mouth shut when I disagree with him. But eventually? He'll show it to Clark. He doesn't want Clark listening to anyone other than him. And Lana, I'm scared about what could happen if he succeeds."

"Wait. But I thought- Clark doesn't trust Lionel . . . He's never trusted Lionel."

Chloe blew out a breath, thinking about how much Lana still didn't know because Clark had waited so long to let her in. "Yeah, that's actually not exactly true anymore." Lana looked stricken by the possibility. Chloe knew the feeling. Taking advantage of what might be her only opportunity to plead her case she pressed, "But you're here now. And Clark will listen to you, so you can be that second voice. If Lionel- If I- Well, you'll be there."

Lana shook her head. "No. No, there has to be another way. I know Lex. If he doesn't want Clark to know . . . he's not just waiting for Lionel to do something. He's got a plan. Chloe, I can't go up against Lionel on my own. Tell me you've got a plan to stop him."

"We do. But it's not foolproof, and it's not exactly . . ."

"Nice?" Lana supplied.

Chloe grimaced. "No, it's not exactly nice."

"But it will keep us from losing you?"

Momentarily thrown by the peculiarity of the phrasing, by the sudden stark memory of Lana standing there in her bridal gown and declaring that she didn't want to lose her, by the realization that this might be the hardest Lana had ever fought to keep anyone, even if it was mixed up with a hundred other selfish reasons, Chloe blinked back tears. "Yeah, yeah if everything succeeds it would keep you from losing me."

"So tell me what I can do."


End file.
